


a road less traveled

by Claudia_flies, cyclamental art (cyclamental), maichan, zilia



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2012 AU, 2012 Alternative Timeline, Avengers Family, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang, Domestic Avengers, Embedded Images, Explicit Sexual Content, Generic Winter Soldier Awfulness, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pining, Post-Avengers (2012), Protective Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark Has A Heart, brock rumlow's fragile masculinity, do not repost to another site, graphic description of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-26 09:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 75,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21371884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_flies/pseuds/Claudia_flies, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclamental/pseuds/cyclamental%20art, https://archiveofourown.org/users/maichan/pseuds/maichan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zilia/pseuds/zilia
Summary: Steve wakes up on the cold stone floor of the foyer. He scrambles up; there’s glass shards everywhere and they crunch under his gloved hands. People are staring, holding themselves back. They must have seen the fight, must have seen two of him.His own voice rings in his head.“Bucky is alive!”It’s all gone FUBAR in 2012.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 421
Kudos: 1421
Collections: Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang





	1. FUBAR

**Author's Note:**

> Notes from Claudia:
> 
> This story was born on one unremarkable day in May while I was on the phone with Zilia being salty about Endgame. _Again_. 
> 
> In the aftermath of that particular movie event, I think we both needed to perform a sort of exorcism of it, and this particular idea seemed to really hit that sweet spot for both of us. Also, we had been looking for another collaboration opportunity ever since our 2017 Stucky Big Bang fic, and so, here we are, almost 7 months and 75k later.
> 
> We were incredibly fortunate to collaborate with two wonderful artists, Cyclamental and Maichan, who brought scenes of this story to life right in front or our eyes with such creativity and flair. I can’t wait for you to see their work! They have both also been incredibly supportive and patient in the, sometimes arduous, process of us writing this story. So a huge THANK YOU to you both for such a wonderful bang experience!
> 
> And finally, Zilia, my fandom-wife, my other half, my partner in crime. I couldn’t have done any of this without you!
> 
> Notes from Zilia:
> 
> This fic started life due to our extreme disgruntlement with Endgame and our shared wish to see exactly how that alternate universe in 2012 might have panned out. This is what we came up with! 
> 
> As ever, I'd like to thank Claudia for being an absolute dream to work with, and for being possibly the only person on the planet I could write a joint fic with, chilled enough that even when I accidentally deleted one of the chapters in front of her very eyes, her only response was "...dude." I think she can be best summed up by the phrase "I'll just write some murder here," which is why I love and fear her in equal measure. 
> 
> I'd also like to thank our two amazing artists, Maichan and Cyclamental, who gave us loads of lovely art and some really useful feedback on our drafts. 
> 
> We hope you enjoy it!

  
  


**FUBAR**

(U.S. Army) Abbreviation for ‘Fucked up beyond all recognition (or repair).’

Steve wakes up on the cold stone floor of the foyer. He scrambles up; there’s glass shards everywhere and they crunch under his gloved hands. People are staring, holding themselves back. They must have seen the fight, must have seen two of him.

His own voice rings in his head.

_“Bucky is alive!”_

No, not _his_ voice, _Loki’s_ voice. It was Loki in disguise as him. Steve’s already seen him do it once today.

His body feels heavy and sluggish, but he pushes himself forward. Past the frightened office workers who’ve barely had time to emerge from wherever they’ve been hiding from the Chitauri army.

Fucking _space whales_!

He eventually makes it to the front entrance, where everything is in full chaos. Paramedics are crouched over Stark, the Hulk is nowhere to be found, Thor is yelling at an old man in a grey suit surrounded by a SHIELD STRIKE team dressed all in black, and Steve, Steve can’t breathe.

_Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive,_ echoes in his head, and he can’t make it stop, even as he knows it’s a lie. Maybe _because_ he knows it’s a lie.

It _has_ to be a lie, it’s from Loki, after all, but he can’t quite make himself ignore it. Those words said in his own voice; desperate and struggling. Steve shakes his head, trying to silence that one piece of him that thinks it just might be real.

When Thor shoves the man in the suit with his hammer, shouting “you and your petty laws can go fuck themselves!”, and then the entire STRIKE contingent raises their weapons, Steve rushes forward, grabbing Thor’s arm and pulling him away before the situation can escalate even further. Everything’s already gone FUBAR with Loki in the wind and the Tesseract God knows where. At least the portal’s shut and the weird space whales are dead, but they really don’t need an incident between Thor and SHIELD right now.

“Captain Rogers,” the man in the suit says, suddenly turning to look at Steve. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

His voice is steady and authoritative, as if he expects to be listened to. Obeyed. Thor is still glowering, and Steve scrutinizes the man while still trying to disengage a pissed off God of Thunder from a group of very twitchy-looking agents.

“Who are you?” he finally says, as Thor lowers his hammer a fraction and some of the electricity in the air dissipates.

“Alexander Pierce, secretary of the World Security Council.” He pauses, looking right at Steve. “And the head of SHIELD. We’re here to collect both Loki and the Tesseract for safekeeping.”

“You have no authority over –” Thor yells, and Steve yanks him back, putting some serious force into it finally, managing to pull Thor off-balance enough to step in front of him and take some control over the situation.

“Well, as you can see, Mr. Pierce, Loki isn’t here anymore.”

“Because of your interference!” Thor bellows from behind him, and Steve struggles to hold him back from launching himself at the SHIELD agents again, who are all clearly beginning to regret ever having put on Kevlar.

“We’re not going to let this go, Captain.” There’s steel in the man’s gaze, and Steve finds himself bristling.

“You’re very welcome to conduct your own search, but he isn’t here anymore, as I already stated.”

“We’ll see about that, Captain Rogers.” There’s a threat there that Steve can almost taste, but before he can reply, there’s a soft tap on his shoulder and a gentle “hey, let’s go.”

It’s Natasha, her lip still bloody and swollen. Steve has no idea where she’s materialized from, and she doesn’t seem inclined to explain. “Stark needs medical attention and Pepper’s just landed at LaGuardia and is on her way.”

Thor’s already turning towards her, giving the STRIKE team his back like their hastily assembled tactical formation and pointed guns mean nothing. Natasha is still talking, not giving STRIKE even a fraction of her attention.

“They’re taking him to Mount Sinai, Stark’s got a private wing there, so come on.”

She motions them to follow and Steve wants to spit out that his city is in ruins and of course rich assholes get priority, but for once, he keeps the thought to himself. He catches Pierce looking at them as they go, his expression flat and unreadable.

They get into one of those stupidly large black cars which has appeared from somewhere, strangely undamaged, and Clint follows the ambulance all the way to midtown. They get let through all of the roadblocks with minimal fuss behind the ambulance. Steve’s in the back with the still-glowering Thor, the comforting weight of the shield against his calf. None of them has any idea where Bruce, or the Hulk, for that matter, is, nor what the fresh hell actually happened in the foyer. Steve hopes that at least the Hulk’s somewhere finding Loki and bashing him into the floor again. That would be great.

_Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive._

It still rings in his head as they drive, he can’t help it, and he has to ask. Has to know. He leans over to Thor, who’s still squeezing the hammer like he wants to break the handle in one of his meaty paws.

“Do you know who Bucky is?”

“Who?” Thor asks, frowning.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats, and even saying the name out loud hurts.

“No. Should I?”

“It was something Loki said. He told me ‘Bucky is alive.’”

Thor’s shaking his head, looking out at the destruction they’re driving past. “I don’t know, my friend, I have never heard that name. Who is he?”

Steve breathes, forces the words out. “He was my friend, part of my unit. He died.” It’s not even close to what Bucky was, _is_, to him, nowhere near, but it’s all he can force himself to say.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, like he somehow knows the gamut of emotions running through Steve’s head, and he presses a warm, heavy hand over his shoulder, grounding him in the moment, into the stiff leather seat of the car.

“How could Loki have known it?” Steve asks, without really expecting an answer.

“I do not know,” Thor says, and it sounds as though he’s thinking out loud. “I have been thinking that something is amiss with my brother. Mischief is to be expected from him, of course, but these past few days, his actions have seemed extreme, even for him. I have even wondered whether someone else may have been acting through him…. Perhaps some other power could have given him the knowledge of your friend?”

It’s the only answer Thor has for Steve, and he shrugs apologetically as they drive the rest of the way to the hospital in silence and park in the underground lot. Even the parking space is labeled ‘Stark’.

Stark gets taken into the OR as soon as they get through the doors, and the rest of them are told to wait. The hospital is teeming with SHIELD agents as well. Fury’s there on Stark’s floor, as is the Pierce guy, who inconveniently manages to corner Steve by the vending machines while Steve is trying to find a bag of something called ‘flaming hot Cheetos’ for Natasha. Instead of the cold shoulder he’d shown at Stark Tower, though, he grabs Steve in a tight handshake.

That steel and threat has been totally wiped off his face and now he looks glad, the corners of his eyes crinkling as if he’s smiling. “I’m so glad to have you on our side, Captain,” he says, with so much conviction, and Steve just nods stupidly, whiplashed by the sudden change of pace.

It’s not like he’s officially agreed to work for SHIELD yet, but maybe Fury had said something to Pierce. Maybe with everything going on, it’d be a good choice. Natasha and Clint seem happy enough, and he wouldn’t mind working with them again. But there’s the issue of SHIELD using the Tesseract to make weapons, and Steve isn’t quite ready to let that go yet. He wants to talk to Peggy before he makes any decisions. He knows she’s still alive and in a nursing home in England. Maybe he could call her, at least.

“Sure,” he ends up saying, “it’s good to be back,” distracted by still trying to read all the names in the lurid-colored packages in the vending machine. God, he doesn’t even know how the machine works. Is there even a coin slot in the fucking thing?

Pierce smiles, sharp and hungry, and for a moment, Steve wants to clarify that he’s only saying that because of Peggy and her legacy in founding SHIELD, but he doesn’t get a chance before Pierce is patting him on the shoulder and saying, “I look forward to seeing you in DC. We have great work to be getting on with.”

“Yeah, yeah sure,” Steve nods, seeing Natasha beckoning him from further down the corridor. He takes the chance to make his escape, even if he didn’t even manage to get the weird flaming hot Cheetos she’d wanted.

Once he’s disengaged himself from Pierce Steve makes his way back to Stark’s room, where he’s finally back from surgery. Most of the medical staff have left and Pepper is standing at the end of the bed wearing a wrinkled white suit and she’s yelling. _Loudly_. Steve gets the feeling that this isn’t an unusual occurrence, from the look on Stark’s face.

So, yeah. FUBAR all around.

* * *

They end up sitting around the hospital room for hours, Clint perched on the windowsill, Natasha and Pepper on the armchairs provided, which leaves Steve and Thor the plastic chairs that a nurse brings along when she sees them standing around aimlessly and getting in everyone’s way. Thor leaves briefly to call someone whom he refers to as “the lady Jane,” who’s apparently some scientist who works for SHIELD and Thor’s girlfriend, maybe? He calls her his “paramour,” which makes Natasha roll her eyes, and when he returns from the call, his spirits seem a little lifted.

The doctors do test after test and Steve is only a little bit weirded out by modern medical practices, not to mention the fact that the cardiologist is a woman. No one else makes a comment, so he assumes that’s normal now.

The evening begins to darken, and even with all the beeping and clicking machinery, Steve spies Pepper nodding off in her chair. Eventually, Stark badgers everyone to go and sleep in the Tower, and surprisingly, everyone seems to agree. It feels like safety in numbers, curling up in a pup-tent or a foxhole. Bucky and Dum Dum and Jim and Frenchie and Gabe and Falsworth snoring all around him in the dark of the night out on the Western Front.

It feels good, _right_, to go and rest with his team somewhere safe. As they head through the door, Steve can still hear Stark yelling. “And get shawarma! Pepper! Shawarma for everybody! Make an order! That place off Lexington!”

Surprisingly, food, which Steve is told is called ‘shawarma,’ does show up at the penthouse where they’ve all congregated not an hour later, and Clint hands him a rolled-up bread that smells kinda garlicky. It’s good, a bit strange, but still tasty. Steve eats seven of the bread things and then looks around feeling sheepish, only to notice that Thor is surrounded by at least eleven wrappers. Emboldened, he grabs another one.

When Stark does arrive, he doesn’t stop talking, even when Pepper guides him to sit on the couch and pushes some shawarma into his hands. He keeps talking between the bites. About what happened, how it happened, how something really strange went on. Steve doesn’t argue with that. Having to fight himself is probably going to stay as the strangest thing that’s ever happened to him, even if it was just Loki in disguise. At least the copycat didn’t rip the skin off his face, because that incident with the Red Skull has now moved down to number two on the ‘weirdest things’ list.

Somehow, Pepper manages to arrange everyone a change of clothes, bedrooms to sleep in, and even toiletries. Steve wonders how a man like Stark has managed to keep ahold of this miracle lady. He tries to give her a smile and a ‘thanks’ as she hands him a stack of clothing, but his face feels like putty. The shawarma is sitting heavy in his belly and the past 48 hours are finally starting to catch up to him.

“There’s a private bathroom off all the bedrooms and you’re all down the same corridor.”

Her smile is gentle like she already knows everything Steve is thinking, and he doesn’t know how to even start expressing his gratitude, so he just ends up lamely saying, “Thank you, Ms. Potts.”

“Pepper is fine, Captain Rogers.”

“Steve, please.”

She nods and touches his shoulder softly. “Just let me know if you need anything, and thank you.”

“For what?” he asks, suddenly feeling bewildered. What could she possibly have to thank him for?

“For keeping him alive, I know it’s not always the easiest of things.” She motions towards the couch with her head, where Stark is lying, fiddling with his phone.

“Oh,” is all that Steve can think to say, as he clutches the pile of clothes to his chest.

“Tony and I will be in the master suite on the other side of the living room, but you can just ask Jarvis if you need anything.”

“I am here to assist with anything you may require, Captain Rogers,” comes a mechanical voice from the ceiling. Steve manages to not punch the wall in surprise, but only just. This must be Stark’s famous AI.

After a second, once he’s over the surprise, he nods and heads to the room Pepper’s pointed him towards. Natasha and Clint have disappeared behind two of the already closed doors, and Steve can hear Pepper giving Thor his clothes and things.

When he closes the bedroom door, Steve lets himself just lean against the wood and close his eyes. Grateful for the darkness behind his lids, though it’s not that the room is bright, the only light coming from a modern-looking bedside lamp. Eventually, he has to move. He finds that the second door goes into the en-suite bathroom, which turns out to be stupidly opulent, with gleaming dark stone floors and several light switches that Steve doesn’t even try to work out. Even with that, it takes him more than five minutes to figure out how to turn the shower on and then how to get the water hot.

He stands under the spray for what feels like an hour, breathing in the steam and trying to get his whole body to unclench, even just a little bit. It doesn’t really work, his whole being like a livewire still. Eventually, he gives up on the relaxation and just gives himself a cursory wash with the liquid soap placed in the little cubby hole.

Afterwards, he pulls on the soft pants and the t-shirt bearing the Stark Industries logo which were both in the pile of clothes and lies on the bed. Even tries to get under the covers. The lights are off and everything is quiet and still he can’t sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he hears the crash of the glass wall and the strangled “_Bucky is alive!_” in his head.

An hour or two passes, tossing and turning, and eventually, Steve just gives up trying. It’s still dark outside and all the lights are off. The penthouse is dead quiet, but not empty, as he sees when he walks into the living room.

Natasha is sitting on the couch, her feet tucked in, staring at the dazzling New York skyline. The lights of the buildings aren’t all there tonight, the damage to the city screaming out in those dark blotches, those strange broken shapes that cut the sea of light.

“Can’t sleep?” she asks, her voice hoarse.

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head and sitting beside her on the couch.

He doesn’t really know her. Doesn’t really know any of them, not truly. Combat only does so much. But still they sit there quietly watching New York together, the city still not asleep even after such a close brush with absolute destruction. Natasha doesn’t speak and Steve is grateful for the silence.

Clint comes out of his room around 4 am, and joins them on the couch. He doesn’t say much either, just sits there and stares at the horizon. Steve aches for him, the way he holds himself tight and closed off until Natasha leans on his shoulder and he relaxes just a fraction. There’s something in his posture that makes him think of Bucky right after Kirschberg, and the ache in his chest is so bad he has to press his hand to his sternum, just for a second.

They hear the muffled yell cut through the silence, all of them tensing until Pepper’s voice calls out, soothing. Everything goes quiet again after that. They don’t look at each other or talk. They all know that not sleeping is a valid choice when faced with nightmares.

Thor is the last to arrive at 5:30, when the sun is already peeking over the horizon, streaks of light cutting through the destruction of downtown Manhattan. He looks just like Steve feels; like he’s spent the night tossing and turning on sheets and pillows softer than clouds and not finding any rest.

They all turn when the elevator doors open not long after 6 am and Bruce walks in, sheepish and tired-looking, wearing what can only be a stolen jacket in a multitude of lurid colors. “Sorry,” he says, shrugging awkwardly and trying to hold up his pants. “The other guy just had to cool down, I guess.”

They all nod silently and Bruce waves as he makes his way down the corridor. He must shower in one of the empty rooms and even manages to find a change of clothing from some cubby or another, because he shows up dressed and shaved just in time to see a woman in chef’s whites and a rattling cart come through the door. After being thoroughly inspected by both Clint and Natasha, she’s let into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Steve thinks of army canteens, of men queueing for chow, and how this is nothing like it. The chef lays down cutlery and glasses and plates on the dining table they had foregone last night. White napkins and carafes of what appear to be different kinds of juices. It’s all so wasteful, the way she unwraps each dish from foil or some kind of plastic wrap, cuts up all the fruits into neat little squares and circles. Stark and Pepper arrive just in time when a heaping bowl of scrambled eggs and a tower of pancakes and French toast are placed on the table.

“If anyone would like eggs Benedict, please let me know and I will prepare those fresh,” the chef says, and Steve just looks at her and the food, bewildered.

“Yup, we’ll have some,” Tony declares while seating himself at the head of the table. “Tweety? Red Menace? Brucey? Eggs Benedict, anyone?”

Steve just shakes his head as he takes a seat. Everyone starts to eat, and after seeing Thor skewer about eight pancakes on his knife and deposit them onto his plate, Steve starts to help himself. He gets eggs and bacon and sausages, pancakes, and French toast. It’s all excellent. Except the bananas, which taste like shit, so Steve tries to covertly push them to the side of the plate. He doesn’t want to be rude, but they really do taste like garbage; mealy and bland. Everyone else seems to be eating them, so maybe he just got a bad one.

“So,” Tony drawls out, looking around the table. “What’s the plan, care bears?”

When no one says anything, he carries on. “The space whales are dead and the portal’s shut and we saved New York, so yay for us! But Loki’s still out there, still has the Tesseract. So we gotta have a plan, because he’ll be back.”

“So, what do we know about the cube?” Natasha asks, sipping her orange juice. “We need intel.”

“We know that SHIELD had it,” Steve butts in, not ready to let that particular revelation lie quite yet. “We know they were making weapons with it. We know that the safest thing for it was to not be on Earth.”

The silence between them is thick and heavy. Steve feels the bitter taste of failure in his mouth, and no, it’s not just the disgusting bananas.

“The Tesseract is an item of immense power,” Thor eventually says tiredly from his end of the table. “It came into the care of Asgard during my father’s rule. He kept it locked away in the vault.”

“How did it end up in fucking Norway?” Steve spits out, feeling the same anger he’s felt ever since seeing the guns, the armor. Of how similar it was to HYDRA, to Schmidt.

“I don’t know,” Thor admits, after a pause. “I am not sure when and how it was moved, but my father must have deemed it to be safer here on Earth than on Asgard.”

“Daddy dearest found it in the fifties when he was looking for Capsicle over there,” Tony quips, pointing at Steve with a fork. “And somehow, it ended up at SHIELD.”

Steve doesn’t dignify that with an answer. It’s not his business to try and unpack whatever bad blood seems to be between Tony and Howard. It feels like only weeks since he saw Howard last and now he’s long dead and buried. Like everyone.

“It’s bad fucking news, is what it is,” Clint says, not looking up from his eggs.

“Yeah,” Steve grunts. “Should’ve left it in the ocean.”

The words feel bitter on his tongue now, when Fury just didn’t seem to give a fuck, and look how it all ended.

“No shit,” Clint mutters, and at least he seems to be on the same page. Steve gives him a tight smile across the table.

Tony’s still waving around with his fork. “Okay, so we datamine their systems then, I still have that full data dump from the helicarrier, and it’s not like breaking into their networks is hard, right?”

Natasha snorts, but she doesn’t look opposed to the idea, which Steve doesn’t know how to read. She works for SHIELD, after all, but from where he’s looking, she doesn’t seem to have much loyalty to them. Thor shoves a pile of eggs still on his plate with the serving spoon he’s been using to eat them with and grimaces.

“I need to warn Asgard. If Loki has the Tesseract, he may try to return there, and I will not be able to go back without it.”

“Is there a way to do that?” Bruce asks with a frown.

“Not that I know of,” Thor says, shaking his head.

“We’ll figure something out, Point Break,” Tony says, and for once, he sounds genuine. “Never tried intergalactic communication before, but how hard can it be?!”

“Yeah, sure,” Bruce laughs, without humor. “How hard can it be?”

“You, me, Point Break,” Tony points at himself, Bruce, and Thor in turn. “My lab, after breakfast. And after we crack intergalactic comms, we’ll crack SHIELD open like an egg!”

Tony lifts up his glass in a toast, but when no one else does, he takes a sip and grumbles, “You’re all boring.”

* * *

That’s how they all end up living in the penthouse for five days. It’s comforting in a way, the closeness, except no one is ever really there.

Stark and Banner start building a communication system for Thor and another tracking device for the cube, and it takes Steve almost a day to figure out that Stark mostly eats and sleeps in the lab several floors down. Bruce spends most of his days there as well, but at least he comes up for dinner, even if he spends most of that time reading stacks of scientific papers and barely paying attention to whatever he’s shoveling into his mouth.

Pepper is around, but she seems to keep almost as strange hours as Stark, fielding conference calls with far-flung locations from the office next to the master suite whenever she’s in. Steve assumes she eats somewhere else, because besides using the strange coffee machine in the mornings, he never sees her in the kitchen. Except for that one time he saw her drinking a green sort of sludge from a glass jar and decided to not ask about it.

Clint and Natasha come and go as they please. Apparently, there’s some kind of shooting range in one of the basement levels which Steve has yet to investigate. They come back in the evenings with a variety of different take-out from countries Steve has never heard of before. A spicy rice dish from somewhere called Nigeria, or a stew called ‘curry’ from Bangladesh, or a set of crispy-looking rolls and noodle soup from Vietnam. They say that they want him to try out new things, and it’s all pretty tasty, even though some of the spicier things make him cough.

That leaves him and Thor as the outliers, and outsiders. There’s a strange kind of affinity between them with how ill-at-ease they are. Men out of time, the both of them, Thor maybe even more than him; at least New York is still _New York_. Rude and loud and smelly. The places are still called the same, Red Hook and the Heights and Vinegar Hill. Steve takes Thor for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and tries to point these places out even though the skyline has changed too much for him to recognize them anymore, and there are so many tourists out with their cameras and their phones.

Eventually, when the tracking for the cube comes up empty, Stark sets everyone up with new, secure computers and the data from the helicarrier gets divided between all of them. They’re still working on the communication device, and every time Thor asks about it, Tony just shakes his head, almost angry.

Steve ends up with a lot of operational reports and write-ups from debriefings. Some of the language and terms are familiar, some are not, and he ends up spending considerable amounts of time on Wikipedia looking up modern military terminology. It’s one way of trying to catch up. There are a few ops that Steve puts to one side. There’s something in the language, in the way the debriefing is coded, that makes him smell a rat.

Stark and Bruce take up all of the files from the R&D departments and anything that was collected from the scepter during testing. Thor gets anything and everything relating to the cube which doesn’t neatly fit into the science camp. He reads it all with consideration and a notepad and pen, jotting down words in a language Steve doesn’t understand.

Clint and Natasha eat bags of nuts and kettle corn and candy while reviewing real estate holdings and financial data respectively. Natasha ends up sitting at the table for a whole night tracking two sets of payments that had been wired through fifteen fictitious accounts before she agrees to go to bed. During that particular hunt, she also finds several odd references to the Ideal Federal Savings Bank, which get filed away for further investigation once everything about the cube has been parsed through.

It’s not a great feeling, the slow realization that there’s something going on at Peggy’s agency which doesn’t seem to be above board. Steve isn’t stupid, he knows that sometimes in order to win a war you have to put morality aside, but there’s something different here. The way the data is coded, hidden and parsed, that makes the pit of his stomach knot. The way Natasha looks at the numbers on her computer makes him think she’s feeling the same thing.

* * *

It’s day six at the Tower when Steve runs into Natasha and Pepper early one morning in the hallway. They’re both wearing what he’s come to know as exercise clothing, with duffle bags on the floor by their feet.

“We’re going spinning,” Natasha says over her shoulder and then turns fully to face him, asking “Would you like to join us?”

“Uh, what’s ‘spinning’?”

“Oh, yes, it’s an exercise class on stationary bikes,” Pepper clarifies from behind her.

It all sounds a bit loony, but so do most things in the future that people supposedly do for fun, and Steve does want to try things. He’s starting to go at least a tiny bit stir crazy in the penthouse. There’s only so much military data even he can absorb in one go.

“Sure, I’ll come.”

Somehow, Pepper manages to find him a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that’s not too tight and they walk the three blocks down to a very exclusive-looking gym. Pepper signs him in as a guest at the reception and he’s handed a towel and a branded water bottle.

He waits while Pepper and Natasha put their bags in the women’s locker room. Everything is shiny and clean, and the gym looks more like an expensive hotel. Steve feels woefully out of place, especially when a group of young women walk past him with a matching set of appreciative smiles. He turns away and looks at the midtown traffic instead, a long line of cars bumper to bumper stretching all the way down Park Avenue.

The spinning studio, as they call it, is a huge rectangular room filled with strange-looking bicycles. They find three free bikes next to each other and Natasha shows him how to set everything up for his height.

“You adjust the resistance with this knob,” she says, pointing to a red handle on the frame of the bike. “It’s probably not going to give you a huge amount even at the highest setting, but just have fun with it.”

Steve isn’t sure if ‘fun’ is really going to be the word for this experience, but he’d promised himself to try things, and _this_ is definitely trying things. Slowly, the room fills with svelte, athletic-looking people. The instructor is an exuberant woman with short hair who keeps shouting “Are you ready?!” into her microphone. Steve most certainly isn’t ready, and he’s surprised to see that they turn off all the lights as the class starts. Pepper smiles at him in the dark, her teeth white and gleaming.

It’s actually surprisingly fun. Like Natasha says, the bike really doesn’t give him enough resistance on the bits where they’re supposed to be climbing a hill, but Steve’s ass is in enough pain from the seat to make up for that oversight. He can see Natasha laughing at him and his relief when the instructor tells them to stand up from the saddle, but doesn’t hear anything above the pounding music.

It’s nice, just doing something physical in a dark room with others. No one is looking at him or judging him, or God forbid, asking for his autograph. There’s no room to think beyond the next set of instructions, and the music helps too. It’s not like any music he’s heard before and most of it is just noise, but at least it keeps his brain quiet for an hour.

Afterwards, Pepper and Natasha buy smoothies from the bar at the reception and take him into an empty studio. They try to teach him a set of convoluted yoga poses while they all finish their drinks. It’s actually a lot of fun, trying to pretzel his body into impossible positions that both Natasha and Pepper make look easy. He finds himself smiling and then laughing as Natasha shoves him over from a handstand.

He feels lighter somehow when they walk back to the Tower.

All of the good cheer disappears, however, as soon as they get back to the penthouse and find Tony lying on the kitchen floor with an ocean of coffee and a shattered cup next to him. They all rush to him, Pepper shouting “Tony!” as she crouches over him, the coffee soaking into her white leggings.

“Tony, Tony,” she repeats, rubbing roughly at his sternum just as Tony starts awake.

“What, who, why am I wet?” he asks stupidly, looking at all of them. “Spangles, why are you wearing shorts?”

Pepper huffs angrily and chides him about excessive caffeine. “The doctors told you to take it easy on the coffee!” She sounds angry, but Steve can read the fear underneath the words.

Maybe Tony reads it too, because he reaches for her and pulls her into an awkward low hug. “It’s alright Pep. It’s alright. I’m alright.”

Steve and Natasha help him stand while Pepper dials the doctor, which is good because Tony loses his footing twice trying to get up on his own. Slowly, they get him on the couch while they wait for the doctor, the constant bickering between Pepper and Tony keeping them company.

“I told you to be careful.”

“I was, Pep, I was, it wasn’t –”

“I told you to sleep and not overdo it, Tony!”

“Pep, honey, I wasn’t, honestly!”

“Well how do you explain this!?”

The back and forth is interrupted by the ding of the lift and Jarvis announcing the arrival of the doctor. Tony gets checked out and then re-checked on Pepper’s demand, but as far as the doc can see, nothing is wrong. Tony even runs diagnostics on the arc reactor and everything seems to be okay. He does stare at the readings for a tad too long, but eventually discards the tablet announcing that everything’s fine.

The doctor doesn’t look too pleased with the assessment. “Mr. Stark, I know everything seems to be working correctly, but please make sure you rest and recuperate.”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Porter, I’ll make sure he does.” There’s a level of threat in Pepper’s voice which five-star generals would envy. Tony seems to slink back further into the couch cushions under her gaze.

They all still need showers, and once Pepper’s plumped up the pillows on the couch and gotten Tony a green, sludgy smoothie from the fridge, which he makes a disgruntled face at, both Steve and Natasha head off to their rooms.

“You can’t just leave me here! I need entertainment! People! Hello!”

Tony’s voice echoes down the hall even as Steve gets into his own room. He thinks he even hears it in the shower, and he definitely hears Tony monologuing while he changes into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. Tony just keeps hollering until everyone eventually shows up in the living room just to get him to shut up.

In the end, it’s actually not a half-bad evening. Pepper orders a stack of pizzas and appetizers, not letting Tony have any of them, and pulls up a few cases of what Clint proclaims to be “excellent microbrews” from the drinks fridge. The fact that someone can have a separate drinks fridge still blows Steve’s mind.

Jarvis lowers a huge cinema screen from the ceiling and after ten minutes of arguments, a movie called ‘Predator’ is chosen. It’s gory and quite stupid, but everyone, except him and Thor, seems to know all the lines, often shouting them out loud with the characters.

The pizza and beer are excellent and Steve is glad to note that New York pizza hasn’t changed much since his time. Thank God for the Italians. He ends up eating three whole pizzas without noticing, but when he turns to look at the others, he can only see Natasha smiling at him gently. She and Clint are squeezed together into an armchair in the corner. He smiles back at her, suddenly feeling just a tad more at home.


	2. Asses and Elbows

**Asses and Elbows**

(U.S. Army) A state in which everyone is busy, such as while cleaning.

They’ve been living at the Tower for almost two weeks when Thor comes for breakfast without a shirt on for the third time. Natasha puts down her fork and stares like she always does. Pepper pretends to not look when she’s there, but they all know she does. Steve looks too, because _Jesus fucking Christ_.

“It’s not that we don’t all enjoy the gun show at seven in the morning, Thor, but can you please just wear a shirt?” Natasha drawls, chin on her palm.

For a moment, Thor actually looks embarrassed, fidgeting with the drawstring of his pants.

“I, ah, well I –” he mumbles. “The shirts were great, really.”

“Okay,” Natasha says, her intonation totally flat. “But?”

“I broke them all,” he rushes out, and Clint snorts and starts to laugh. He laughs so hard he tips back on his chair, but catches himself on a table leg with his foot. All of the breakfast dishes shake, but nothing spills.

“You broke them all?” Natasha repeats, her voice deadpan.

Thor nods, looking like a scolded schoolchild.

“Well, I guess they were never your size to begin with.” Natasha shrugs and picks up her phone, taps on it a few times, and lifts it to her ear. Steve can hear the dial tone.

“Hey Pep,” she smiles when someone picks up on the other end. “We’ve got a shopping situation for our men out of time.”

Steve assumes Pepper says something on the other side of the line, because Natasha’s nodding and humming as she speaks. “Yeah, sounds good. If you can book for this afternoon, yeah, great. Okay, we can meet you there. Thanks!”

She hangs up and looks at both Steve and Thor with a smile that Steve doesn’t like at all. “Alright boys, we’re going shopping.”

“Why do I have to come?!” Steve asks. Thor seems relatively excited at the prospect of experiencing more of Earth culture, but Steve has no desire to do shopping of any kind. He has enough clothing already, and from what he’s seen, the 21st century seems incredibly wasteful. He tries to express all these sentiments to Natasha, who isn’t taking any of it, while being herded out of the penthouse.

“I mean seriously, Steve, the stuff that SHIELD gave you is just _tragic_,” Natasha sighs as she hustles them into a town car in the Tower’s garage. Happy waves at all of them from the driver's seat and pulls out into the midtown traffic with practiced ease. Steve looks down at the slacks and button-down he’s wearing and can’t really see anything particularly wrong with them.

“Trust me,” Natasha says and pats his knee from where she’s squashed between him and Thor in the backseat.

Happy takes them to Bergdorf Goodman. It’s still in the same place on 5th Avenue and for a moment, it feels like two worlds laying atop one another. The building looks exactly the same as he remembers from walking past it all those years ago, though it feels like only several months to him, but he’d never gone inside back then. All those fancy frocks and silverware in the window displays, things Steve would never have dreamt of affording.

Bucky’s dad had bought a silver brooch from there for Winnie in ‘39 for their silver anniversary. The whole block had ooh’d and ahh’ over it at Mass that Sunday. Winnie had been so proud, preening and happy, showing it off. Steve remembers going to Sunday dinner that day, the celebration and happiness all around them, Bucky’s sisters jostling and arguing over who’d get to wear the brooch in turn.

It all fades away as Happy opens the door for them and Thor and Natasha slide out of the car in front of the store. There’s still fancy frocks in the window, but Steve doesn’t recognize the styles of them anymore. There’s also a man in a neat-looking waistcoat at the door, and Natasha makes a beeline for him.

“A private party for Ms. Potts, yes?” he asks, with a slight accent Steve can’t place.

Natasha nods and drags both Steve and Thor in her wake to follow the man. He guides them easily through the shop floor and into the lifts. They get shown to what Steve thinks is a private show-room and are offered flutes of champagne and small plates of dainty cakes. Natasha seems exceedingly pleased about it all, sipping her drink and picking up a yellow macaroon from the plate.

Pepper breezes in ten minutes later, apologizing for her lateness. “Lunch with the finance team ran over, as always,” she says, though she looks remarkably unruffled.

She kisses Natasha on both cheeks and picks up a champagne flute, turning to greet both Thor and Steve in the same way, while Thor tries to covertly push the three empty cake plates behind him. The servers are already looking at both him and Steve with suspicion, after having to bring in five new plates of cakes.

“Marc.” Pepper turns to the man in the sharp waistcoat, greeting him with two cheek-kisses as well. “Wonderful to see you again.”

“You as well, Ms. Potts,” Marc smiles, and it’s all teeth.

“I’m not here for myself this time, as I said. We need a full men’s wardrobe for both Steve and Thor,” she says, motioning to them both standing gormlessly in the middle of the showroom. Thor still has a faint dusting of powdered sugar on his beard. Steve can see that Marc wants to say something about the fact that Captain America and Thor the God of Thunder are standing right in front of him, but his professionalism seems to win out in the end.

“Of course, Ms. Potts. Is there anything specific that we need to keep in mind?”

“Just fit, please, Marc. And if we need any tailoring, just send it to Mr. Goldberg as usual.”

“Of course, ma’am,” he nods.

And then the fun really starts, and by ‘fun,’ Steve means ‘horror of unimaginable proportions.’

Marc and an army of Marc look-alikes wheel rails and rails of clothing into the room, which they want Steve and Thor to try on, while Natasha and Pepper sit on comfortable armchairs and sip champagne and eat the dainty cakes. It’s worse than the USO tour. Well, maybe not worse, because he doesn’t have to kiss any babies. But pretty bad, in any case.

Steve feels sick looking at the price tags on everything. He understands inflation, he does, but it still doesn’t make it any easier, and he knows that the items are expensive even in today’s currency. Once Marc sees him looking, he tries to hide each of the tags before handing Steve anything. He still looks once he’s in the safety of the dressing room.

The fit of everything feels just slightly off, the shirts just a tad too tight and the pants too low on the waist, but he knows it’s the correct look in the mirror. The way men dress today. The pile of clothes just grows and grows. Jeans and slacks and shirts, a coat and a jacket. Exercise clothing and winter clothing. Sweaters and shoes and even a pair of sunglasses and a leather jacket, which Steve secretly does like a lot.

Thor, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying himself immensely, ordering the Marc-clones around, demanding things in silk and velvet and leather. He looks great in almost everything, and Pepper and Natasha “ooh” and “ahh” at the correct times.

They end up getting ten bags of clothing to take home with five other bags and four suits being sent to Pepper’s tailor for alterations. Steve feels slightly sick and luckily doesn’t even see the final cost of everything as Pepper settles the bill with Marc at a table at the end of the room.

Maybe Natasha sees it all on his face, because she leans into him, her small frame a solid weight against his side.

“It gets better,” she says. “You get used to it.”

Steve doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, but there’s a lot of things about her that he doesn’t really know, so he just nods, and smiles at Thor over her head, who’s giddy at the prospect of all the new clothing, of fitting in on Earth.

“My lady Jane will be delighted!” he booms. “I must arrange to speak to her this evening and show her all this finery!”

Steve knows it’s hard for him, even if he’s not showing it. Tony and Bruce are nowhere near to getting the communication device working, and Steve knows he worries about his family, about his home, and fears not ever seeing them again. Steve can understand that terror intimately. There’s still Jane, of course, and she seems to be something of a comfort, but she’s working on a project at some remote research station that SHIELD sent her to when Loki’s Chitauri invaded and shows no sign of coming back yet.

“Science is her first great love,” Thor had told him mournfully earlier.

They finally get back down to street level. While Happy’s loading all the bags into the back of the town car, Thor suddenly goes unnaturally still next to Steve where they’ve been joking and jostling each other on the sidewalk. He’s staring into the crowd, eyes narrowed, and it takes a moment, but suddenly Steve sees it too. Long dark hair and a smirking pointed face among all the tourists across the street.

Steve isn’t sure which one of them reacts first, both of them rushing forward and right into the 5th Avenue traffic. Twisting and leaping over cars, heedless of the honking and squealing brakes as the cars swerve to try and avoid them. He hears Pepper shouting. Natasha must be on the move too, but he doesn’t see or hear her.

It’s definitely him, definitely Loki, because he waits for them, just standing there smiling while people walk around him, and just as a cab cuts into their path, he gives a sloppy salute, disappearing into the crowd with a swish of his green coat.

“Loki!” Thor yells as he launches himself clean over the cab with a single leap. “You bastard!”

The crowd barely gives him any room, because this is New York, after all, and Steve is left sliding over the hood of the cab and pushing away pedestrians as he follows Thor at a full sprint. They run down 58th, past Madison and Park, cars honking and swerving as they go, ignoring the traffic lights. Thor doesn’t even seem to see them. Steve nearly gets hit by a speeding SUV on Lexington, but the delay allows him to see Loki twist himself into a group of people and turn left where there’s a gap between two buildings. Thor blows right past him at a run, not even looking that way.

Steve slows down to a jog and turns into the courtyard with enough time to see Loki jauntily walking towards the cut-through that would take him to 59th. He’s now suddenly wearing a black suit, fitting right in with the office workers milling about. The only thing that stands out is his long hair. He doesn’t seem to think that anyone’s noticed him yet, and Steve follows him, slowly keeping his distance right up until Loki reaches the archway and the cut-through.

Steve launches himself, grabbing ahold of Loki’s arms in just two strides. Spinning him and shoving him against the glass wall of the building. He can hear it creak and crack under the pressure. Loki’s winded, but that doesn’t seem to stop his customary taunting.

“Why, Captain –” he manages, hair blown across his face, but Steve doesn’t let him finish. He’s had enough of this bullshit. Of being manipulated and not told the truth. Fuck Loki and fuck SHIELD.

“How the hell did you know about Bucky?!” he bellows, and Loki flinches back. Steve lets his hands squeeze harder, feeling his fingers dig into muscles as he bashes Loki against the wall again and hears glass shattering. Sees the cracks forming where the back of his head’s hit the wall.

“I hate to break it to you, Captain,” Loki sighs, “But I haven’t got the faintest clue what you’re talking about.” He still sounds infuriatingly calm, if a little out of breath, even with shards of glass littering his hair and shoulders.

“Bucky, you asshole,” Steve grinds out. “You told me he was alive. At the Tower.”

“Again, no idea,” Loki says, subtly testing Steve’s grip. “And what’s a ‘Bucky’?”

  
  
_Art by [maichan](https://maichan808.tumblr.com)_  


Before Steve can answer, he hears an angry bellow to his left and sees Thor rushing towards them from the corner of his eye, and maybe that was his mistake, taking his eyes off Loki even for a fraction of a second, because he feels the muscles in Loki’s arm move like he’s grabbing something.

“Oh dear,” he sighs. “As much as I’d like to stay for a family reunion, I simply have to dash.”

Steve feels him dissolving through his fingers, his grip suddenly tightening on nothing.

“No!” he yells impotently as Loki’s smile disappears into the air, and all the glass on him falls to the ground like hail. He’s barely gone when Thor barrels into him, making Steve stumble.

“He was here!” Thor shouts. “I saw him!”

“Yeah,” Steve nods, winded and shaken. “I had him and then….” He doesn’t know how to finish, fingers squeezing down on nothing but air. He doesn’t know how to admit that they lost. _Again_. That he’d let Loki slip from his fingers. Literally.

Natasha appears out of nowhere, probably having tracked them and looped around to 59th. She looks unsettled.

“What the hell, guys?”

“Loki,” Steve says, looking at her. “It was Loki. I had him, but –”

Steve doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, and her mouth tightens; she’s furious, he can tell. He still isn’t totally sure what her relationship with Clint is, but she seems to hold a particular grudge against Loki for what he did to him.

“We gotta get back to the Tower, then,” she eventually says, eyeing the gathering crowd and the security on the other side of the wall looking at the shattered glass. “Tony and Bruce might have gotten something on the tracking device if he used the cube to get away.”

Pepper and Happy are still waiting outside Bergdorf’s, and they must read the seriousness of the events on everyone’s faces, because Happy jumps into the driver’s seat without a word and gets everyone back into the Tower in record time. Steve fills Pepper in on the drive, and her face pinches with worry.

Tony and Bruce listen to them in almost complete silence in the lab when they finally get to the R&D floors. Clint stands back, looking out of the window, and Steve doesn’t blame him.

There’s a data spike around the time of the incident that does triangulate the cube’s location to New York when they review the output, but then nothing. Everything’s gone quiet again. Just a tiny blip.

Bruce tries to look on the bright side. “We can set up an alert for this pattern if it shows up again. If Loki’s using the cube on Earth, we’ll know about it.”

Thor grabs a wrench from a table and throws it into a wall with a bellow of rage.

“Hey, hey!” Tony shouts. “No breaking shit, Point Break, cut it out!”

Thor just shakes his head and storms out of the room. They don’t see him for the rest of the day, his shopping bags sitting in the living room for hours. Steve tries to at least put his new clothes away. It gives him something else to think about.

That evening, they watch a movie called ‘Alien’ and eat a lot of Thai food. Tony claims it works instead of therapy. Everyone is quieter than usual, grabbing the food cartons and eating with very little conversation. Even Tony seems subdued. Thor shows up halfway through the movie, grabbing a few cartons and sitting down on one of the empty armchairs. No one says anything, and he seems grateful. Steve hears him mumble an apology to Tony not long after, but he respects Thor enough to pretend not to notice.

“I might have something here,” Natasha mutters from where she’s wedged into the corner of the sofa. She’s still on her computer even with the film playing, her face illuminated by the screen. Tony waves his hand and the movie stills, then he shuffles over to Natasha’s side and takes a look.

“The Ideal Federal Savings Bank,” he reads out loud. “Well, won’t you look at that.”

“I know,” Natasha nods.

“Would anyone like to share with the class?” Clint calls out from one of the armchairs.

“Alright, yeah,” Tony mutters, flicking his hand, and suddenly the computer screen is duplicated on the giant cinema screen in front of them. Rows and rows of financial records scroll past at a dizzying speed until Tony pulls it to a stop and starts pulling out entries.

“So, Red Menace here has been tracking some incongruent payments around the world for the past week and a lot of them seem to be going through the Ideal Federal Savings Bank in D.C. Not so much to be overly suspicious, but enough so that a curious mind might ask why, and I am, after all, a very curious mind.”

Tony pulls another set of data, this time a building maintenance log and electricity meter readings. “The building also pulls a suspicious amount of electricity from the grid once in a while. Again, not enough to be suspicious for a normal power corporation drone looking into this, but even for a facility like this that’s running state-of-the-art security vaults, the inconsistencies in the dates and times are staggering.”

“So, a trip to D.C is in order?” Clint asks, looking at Natasha with a raised brow.

She hums, looking skeptical. “If we go, you know we’re going to get pulled into HQ and forced into a debrief. We can’t really do this covertly, especially if whoever’s running this is inside SHIELD.”

Clint twists a pair of chopsticks in his fingers, tapping an uneven rhythm on the arm of the chair. “You’re not wrong.”

“Well, we can always send the Capsicle!” Tony smirks, looking at Steve from his sprawl on the couch. “Because Pierce has been drooling all over him to come to D.C. since the hospital. I know. I’ve seen the chat logs. I’ve got screensavers from those chat logs.”

Before Steve has a chance to reply, Bruce sighs. “Have you been hacking into SHIELD’s Microsoft Teams again, Tony?” he asks, exasperated.

“Just in my free time, I swear!” Tony spreads his arms, faux-innocent. “I just wanna know what memes are trending at SHIELD. And that patriotically tight ass is definitely trending.”

Tony leers and points at Steve, who is ridiculously grateful to be sitting down on his ‘patriotically tight ass.’ “Can we get back to the point?” he snaps, making Tony smirk even wider. He hates that Tony can get under his skin quite so effectively.

Clint, maybe sensing the shift in the room, points to the screen, distracting both Tony from being a smug asshole and Steve from being annoyed at him. “So, Steve’s going to D.C. with the cover of meeting with Pierce?”

It’s on the tip of Steve’s tongue to argue, but Natasha nods and starts to arrange the files into a briefing pack like it’s settled. And it’s not like he has much else to do, is it? Anything is better than nothing. Eventually, Tony gets bored and shifts the screen back to the movie they were watching, turning it back on just so an alien can punch through the chest cavity of one of the characters.

* * *

The following day, while the rest of the team starts to prep for Steve’s D.C. trip, Thor finds the training gym.

It’s just below the three R&D floors, and according to Stark, “filled with all sorts of toys built to test the suits.” But it still comes as a bit of a surprise when Thor claps Steve on the back the next morning and asks, “How about some light sparring, Captain? I think we could both use it right now.”

It’s not something Steve’s considered before: his strength had always made it near-on impossible to train with other soldiers hand-to-hand after the serum, and it’s not like it would have done him any good before that even if he knew how to effectively take a punch; eventually, he’d just get KO’d because of his size.

Thor seems to take his silence for hesitance.

“We are of like strength, you and I,” he says, and then flexes a bicep that makes Steve worry for the structural integrity of the Stark-branded t-shirt he’s wearing. “I, of course, am stronger, but sparring would do us both good!”

“Stronger, huh?” Steve says, leaning against the kitchen counter with his coffee in hand. “You think so?”

“Oh, I know so, friend!” Thor smiles with teeth and there’s something predatory in there. The competitive edge is starting to get to Steve too. The lure of trying out his strength against someone he – in theory – can’t hurt.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind testing that claim out.”

“Good man!” Thor bellows, whacking Steve on the shoulder and sloshing his coffee all over the place.

And that’s how they end up in the gym. It’s nothing like the fancy place Pepper and Natasha had taken him to. It’s mostly filled with crash mats and dummies made out of a material Steve doesn’t recognize, half of them blown to bits. There are scorch marks all over the floors, the walls, and even the ceiling.

They pull a few of the mats together to form a loose rectangle in the middle of the space, and Thor pulls out a thin leather strap from somewhere on his person and ties up his hair. Steve hasn’t seen anyone braid hair that fast since the Sunday he attended Mass with the Barnes family and Becca was running late on account of chatting with the boy next door for too long.

Thor claps his hands together and points at the mat. “Best out of three?”

Steve nods, stretching out his shoulders. There’s a thrum under his skin, an eagerness he hasn’t let himself recognize since the Battle of Manhattan, or whatever the press is now calling it. The need to let off steam. In the war, he’d never had to worry: their downtime was scarce enough as it was, and what little of it he’d had, he’d wanted to spend with Bucky or with Pegs.

Steve smiles and swings without warning. Thor catches it, holding his fist in one meaty hand, and he smiles.

“I told you, stronger!”

Steve grunts, using his body to catch Thor off his balance and pulling his hand free. And then they really go at it.

There’s a fierce joy in not having to hold back, to push his body to the limit without fear of hurting someone. Because Thor matches him blow for blow, easily absorbing whatever Steve can dish out. It’s freeing, in a way. Freeing in the way Thor catches his arm from a punch gone wide and twists, landing him onto the mat, pushing Steve’s body with his own so tightly that he can’t move. He does try, once, twice, but eventually he has to concede and tap out.

Thor is laughing, free and gleeful, as he pulls Steve up from the mat. Steve takes the advantage offered and catches Thor by the waist, bringing him down onto the mat in return. They wrestle, dirty and breathless, neither one of them giving an inch. Thor _is_ stronger, but Steve’s faster, more nimble, and he uses that to his advantage to get Thor into a headlock. He struggles once Steve has him right where he wants him, and eventually Thor laughs and taps the mat.

“You are a wily one, Captain,” he says as he rises back up to his feet, shaking his arms out from the lock.

Steve smiles and braces as Thor sprints across the floor and swings another hit.

“Best out of five,” Steve pants after the round is over, and Thor nods, smiling, taking his position on the mat.

In the end, they’re both out of breath, sweat soaking through their clothes, bruises blooming on arms and legs, and Steve hasn’t felt this good since before he died. The score is three for Thor and two for Steve, and Thor grabs him into a hug. “You are a worthy opponent, my friend! We should do this again soon!” he bellows, and he sounds happy too.

They both turn as a slow clap rings out from the doorway. Tony is standing there, only half in his suit, wires hanging out from the breastplate.

“Jarvis,” he says, “Did we get that on tape? Because if so, I’m going to become a PornHub millionaire.”

Both Steve and Thor stare at him. Steve has no idea what ‘porn hub’ is, but it can’t be anything good.

“Oh, no wait, I’m already a billionaire, but still, did we get that on tape?” Tony asks, when clearly no answer is forthcoming.

“No, sir,” comes the dry voice from the ceiling.

“Then what are you even good for, Jarv?”

“Security, maintenance, running your entire life, and reminding you when it’s Ms. Potts’s birthday.”

It’s strange how a robot can sound so put out.

“Touché.” Tony salutes the ceiling. “So, yeah, no PornHub stardom for you two. I was coming down here to test the new repulsors, but if you two wanna go at it some more, I won’t stand in your way,” he leers. “I’ll just stand here and watch, and possibly record.”

“No,” Steve says, starting to feel that familiar prickling annoyance that always accompanies Tony’s presence. “We’re done here.”

“Suit yourself,” Tony shrugs, moving into the room, pulling on the gauntlets.

Thor bids him goodbye in the living room as they both head for their respective showers.

Steve’s still not used to the opulence of the bathroom, but at least he can now work the different settings well enough. Under the pounding of the water and the steam, his mind can’t help but wander; to the press of Thor’s body over his, the strength of his arms as he held Steve down, pushed and worked him over. His body still feels wired, tight and good and _used_.

It’s an old fantasy, one that he’s never let himself examine too much. Never let into the forefront of his mind. He likes women, has always liked women, so it’s been easy to just dismiss it as a stupid notion. Not something that was _really_ a part of him.

His cock’s hardening between his legs, demanding attention, and he just can’t shake the feeling of a heavy body over his. He tries to not think of Thor – that would be unfair – but there’s a nameless, faceless man in his head, holding him down on the mat, breathing into his neck, pushing inside his body, making Steve take it.

He comes against the wet, tiled wall after only a few tight strokes of his hand. Eyes closed and hand over his mouth to muffle the sound.

He feels ashamed after. Ashamed that he would take a bout between friends and bring it here, that his mind would twist and bend it into something dirty and shameful. He hates that this was a part of him that even the serum couldn’t fix.

After, he pulls on his new sweatpants and a t-shirt in the closet before settling into bed with his computer, wanting to review the files Natasha had put together one more time and get a better idea of the layout of the Triskelion. He manages a few hours of work before curiosity wins out and he Googles ‘porn hub’ and then regrets it for the rest of the night.

Mostly because he ends up down a rabbit hole of watching several videos of two cowboys who’ve hung up a strange swing in their yard and are clearly enjoy filming themselves while they use it. Steve knows that they’re cowboys because there are cows and horses in the background. He hopes that they’re on a farm, really far, far away from anywhere, because they’re being very loud.

  
  
_Art by [cyclamental](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclamental/pseuds/cyclamental%20art)_  


He falls asleep with the computer on his lap and dreaming of winter-grey eyes and a body pressed close to him swinging in the breeze of high summer, and he wakes up the next morning to find an email blinking in his inbox on the screen.

There is no subject line. The sender is brumlow@shield.gov.

_hey cap here u r coming 2 dc got a lot of missions w/ the strike team ur gonna join us?_

_also might have somethin special 2 show u ;) working on an outfit 4u2 bt that might take a little time gotta wait for pears to sign off._

_let me kno what u think_

_rumlow_

Steve blinks at the message a few times, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes and willing the text to make a lick of sense. It’s not that he doesn’t get the concept of abbreviations – a few days of texting with Clint have seen to that, and telegrams used similar principles back in his day, which he is getting _so damn sick_ of reminding people about – but he’s never been exposed to Rumlow’s particular typing style before, and it’s…a lot.

The first line makes sense, more or less; Rumlow’s obviously already heard that he’s coming to D.C. and that he’ll be joining the STRIKE team. That cover had been agreed with Natasha the previous day and sent off to whoever’s handling his visit, so no surprises there, though Steve marvels at how fast the information has traveled.

It’s the next part he has more difficulty with. Rumlow wants to show him something special, possibly involving an ‘outfit 4u2’, but pears need to sign off on it first. After several moments, he gives up and Googles it, but ‘outfit 4u2’ returns complete gibberish, and as to how pears are involved, Steve has no idea.

He tries Googling ‘pears outfit,’ ‘special pears outfit,’ and ‘special pears 4u2,’ but nothing comes up either. It’s not until he says it out loud that he realizes it means ‘outfit for you too.’ _Oh_. That just leaves the pears. Pears? He decides to leave that for a moment, and pauses.

So. Rumlow wants him to come to D.C., to wear an outfit, and to show him something special.

_What the actual fuck?_

Suddenly his insides go cold. Could it be a trap? Does Rumlow _know_ what he’d been watching last night somehow? Tony swore that the computer was secure, but he didn’t seem to have any problems hacking into SHIELD's files, so maybe it works both ways. Does SHIELD have some way of knowing what he’s been looking at? Are they hoping he’ll say yes and turn up to D.C. expecting something inappropriate so they can catch him red-handed and throw him into prison?

Surely it must be a trap. Nobody would be that overt on purpose, though he’s a little hurt that they’d think Rumlow’s the kind of guy he’d go for. If he was into men, which he’s not. Of course.

He wants to back down suddenly, that old fear rearing its ugly head again, those shouts across the street of “Fag!” and “Fairy!” that he’d had to live with for so long still ringing in his head. He wants to tell Tony and Natasha and Clint that he won’t go, but then he’d have to explain why, and that’s out of the question. Not when the team needs him and they still need to find out what’s going on at SHIELD.

No, he’s going to have to go, but to be extra careful. Whatever they throw at him, whatever it is they have to show him, he’s not going to give anything away.


	3. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

**Whiskey Tango Foxtrot**

(U.S. Army) Radio speak for ‘What The Fuck’ (NATO phonetic alphabet).

Steve takes the Harley to D.C. three days later. Fury had tried to insist that he take the jet, but he’d wanted to make his own way there. He’s always loved motorcycles; the feeling of freedom, the speed, the exposure to the elements. Plus, there’s a huge bonus in how much it seems to shock people that he rides one, despite all the footage that survived from his time in the war. For some reason, during the past seventy years, people seem to have forgotten that he was Captain America, Wartime Hero Who Has Seen Some Shit, and instead turned him into Captain America, Strait-Laced Killjoy Who Would Never Do Anything So Rash As Ride A Motorcycle. He blames Fox News for that.

Steve has always enjoyed subverting people’s expectations, however petty that makes him.

He takes only his shield, strapped to his back and fitted with a cover to make it less obvious and more suitable for the kind of stealth missions he’ll be doing as part of STRIKE, and a small bag; the rest of the stuff he’ll need is apparently going to be waiting for him in his apartment, or has been sent ahead by Tony.

When Steve arrives in D.C. and looks at his phone, he sees he’s had another email from Rumlow, the third in three days despite the fact that he didn’t reply to either of the other two. The guy just won’t stop _bugging_ him, filling him in on the STRIKE team and the missions he’ll be doing with them, suggesting that they train together, and – in this most recent message – even asking if he wants to go get a beer once Steve has arrived in D.C. He’s spent less than five minutes with the guy in person. Why is Rumlow so interested in hanging out? He can’t shake the suspicion that it’s all a trap.

_Or maybe it’s because you’re Captain fucking America,_ he reminds himself with a sigh. _Stop being so paranoid and give the guy a chance._ This had always been the hardest part of the job, people being impressed by the symbol and not really knowing what to do about the man behind it. He closes the message and puts his phone back in his pocket, climbing the stairs to go check out the apartment SHIELD have set up for him, while trying not to think about what on Earth he’d have to say to Rumlow over a beer.

The apartment is pretty much what he’d expected, small and comfortable, but impersonal; no pictures, no books, no unnecessary items. A quick inspection reveals that it has minimal crockery and cutlery and only one comfortable chair, which doesn’t speak volumes about SHIELD’s confidence in his ability to make friends. He immediately misses the place he had back in the Tower with the others with its fully stocked cupboards and welcoming coziness.

He goes to the bedroom last, and it’s exactly the same, though he’s relieved to see that they’ve at least stretched to a queen-sized bed. _At least it’s not a single. _On the bed are the three bags he’d packed up from Avengers Tower and something else that he doesn’t recognize folded next to them, which, he finds, is a stealth suit for the missions he’ll be going on. Thank _fuck_, it looks like he no longer has to wear that garish nightmare they’d given him in New York.

This suit is a muted blue with a silver star in the center of the chest, and it looks like it’ll offer much more ballistic protection than anything else he’s had before. He thinks back to Rumlow’s messages and decides that this must have been the suit he’d mentioned in his first email, though he still doesn’t get where the pears come in.

Once he’s inspected the apartment, he sits down on the couch, drinking coffee from the one lone coffee cup, eating the only apple from the fruit bowl, and wondering what to do with himself. He’s filled with the kind of nervous energy that he can usually get rid of by going for a run, or even sparring with Thor, though obviously that’s not an option right now, and he’s half-considering it, maybe getting out his sneakers and shorts and going to check out the neighborhood, when his phone dings with a message from an unknown number.

_<Captain Rogers. Welcome to Washington. Kindly present yourself at the Triskelion in thirty minutes to meet Secretary Pierce. A car will be sent to collect you.>_

Steve sets his phone down and takes a deep breath in.

_Guess I won’t be going for that run, then_, is his first thought, followed closely by _how much of a coincidence is it that they know I’m here?_

He thinks back to his preparations for leaving New York. Both Clint and Natasha, having worked for SHIELD for years, had been convinced that they’d be watching whatever apartment they’d set him up in. Had they been right?

He finds himself appreciating the unique combination of Natasha and Clint’s paranoia (or possibly pragmatism) and Tony Stark’s money which has meant that they can rent another apartment four blocks away to use as a safehouse, via several shell companies, of course. He’d been planning to go check it out later today, but obviously Pierce doesn’t want to waste any time. It’s not that unexpected that Pierce should want to meet with him, given what Tony said about the chat logs and the encounter they had at the hospital, but it’s still nerve-wracking as hell. What kind of man turns down a Nobel Prize? And what would he want with Steve? Just to welcome him to D.C.? Or is there something else going on?

_Well, there’s only one way to find out._

He checks his watch and realizes that he’s already wasted time pondering the matter of Pierce. He’s pretty sweaty from the road, so he decides to have a quick shower, feeling that it might clear his head and make him feel a little less awkward. Before he does so, he sends a message to the Avengers, confident that at least this phone is secure.

<_Meeting with Pierce in 25 minutes. What should I do?_>

After his shower, he stands in front of his closet and wastes a few more precious minutes before eventually putting on the new suit and strapping his shield to his back, which makes him feel a lot more secure than he would in civilian clothing. The suit, unlike the rest of his stuff, hasn’t spent the past couple of days scrunched up in a bag, and he doesn’t need to worry about standing out walking the streets of DC, given that a car will be collecting him. He’d rather take the bike, as at least that way he’d be distracted from the anxiety about the meeting, but evidently he doesn’t get a choice.

He goes down to the foyer to wait for the car and sees that he has a message from Natasha.

<_Just play it cool_> she’s advised him. The timing of the message shows that she’d messaged back almost instantly. <_Let him do most of the talking. You’ll find out more that way._>

_<But how_> he’s just typing, he’s not a spy, and then Tony breaks in.

<_let your ass do the talking._>

Steve blinks a couple of times, and it’s at the point that the car pulls up and he has to abandon the conversation as he gets in, sits down, and puts on his seat belt.

“Triskelion, yeah?” says the driver, and Steve says, “Yeah, thanks,” and gets his phone out again.

The conversation has rather degenerated since the last time he looked.

<_wtf stark?!?!_>, Clint had said.

<_A talking ass?_> That was Thor, with a timestamp that suggested he had taken a while to type it. <_I do not understand._>

<_also sounds kinda gross_>, Clint had continued. <_like you’re talking about farts._>

<_you are a CHILD, barton_>_, _Tony had complained twenty seconds ago, and Steve can see that several of them are still typing replies before Bruce simply writes <_behave_>, and that’s enough to quell the rest of them.

<_Steve, if you can, use the recording app on your phone to record the conversation_>_,_ Natasha says, clearly choosing to rise above this. <_There might be something we can learn from it._>

Steve almost claps a hand to his forehead like a guy in a cartoon, feeling like an idiot for not thinking of it before, but stops himself just in time. He starts scrolling through the different applications, looking in vain for the one that records sound.

<_Which is it?_> he texts back, after failing to find it on his own.

It costs him a lot to ask, as he’s already anticipating Tony jibing at him for not being familiar enough with technology, but it has to be done. A message arrives back a few seconds later and he opens it automatically, before realizing in frustration that it’s from Rumlow, not Natasha.

<_hey cap gonna meet u with pears gotta mission after_> it says.

_These fucking pears again_, Steve thinks, angrily flicking the message aside. _What the fuck?_ He doesn’t really have time to think about it, however, because the driver clears his throat, and Steve jumps. He’d almost forgotten the man was there in his panic over the phone.

“Captain Rogers. Your meeting?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says absently, before he realizes what the guy’s saying and sees that the car has come to a stop. _Shit_. “I mean, yes. Thank you.”

Hastily, he opens the car door and walks to the foyer, still staring at his phone, looking for the right app, paying no attention to where he’s going. _Why the fuck did I let Stark put so many of these on here?_ Half of them are useless and apparently to do with altering photographs. A message from Natasha comes in just as someone approaches him, and Steve moves to sidestep them, eager to see the answer.

When they follow his path, he looks up to see that it’s Pierce.

“Captain,” Pierce says, extending a hand, forcing Steve to put his phone into his other hand. When Pierce smiles, his mouth seems to contain more teeth than usual. Teeth are so _white_ these days for people who have money, so straight, so perfect. Steve’s still getting used to it.

“Secretary Pierce,” he responds, trying to sound respectful. _Shit. _He can’t exactly set up a recording app under Pierce’s nose. He dares a glance at the screen, where the Avengers’ messages are still open, and in a panic, he presses the ‘call’ button and then puts the phone in his pocket, with no idea whether it’ll even work.

“Shall we?” Pierce says, indicating that they should walk, and Steve is left with no choice but to follow him to the elevators. Pierce moves in long, determined strides, with the confident step of a man who knows that people will get out of his way as he approaches them, and indeed, they do. Steve keeps pace with him, determined not to miss anything that could be significant to the Avengers’ investigation of SHIELD.

He knows that Pierce and Fury are old friends, and the two men have a similar aura of power about them, a feeling of _do not fuck with me or you will regret it_, but there’s something about Pierce that seems more approachable, almost likable. Despite his usual distrust of authority figures, Steve can’t help feeling a little impressed.

When they reach the elevators, Pierce presses the call button and the doors slide open almost immediately, like even they want to do his bidding as quickly as possible. Once they’re inside, Pierce turns to him.

“This won’t be a long meeting, Captain, just to welcome you and formally introduce you to the head of the STRIKE team who you’ll be working with while you’re here.”

“Brock Rumlow, sir?” Steve says, knowing the answer already, but wanting to make conversation. He feels horribly conscious of his phone in his pocket, like it’s glowing, like Pierce can see that he’s trying to record their conversation. He resists the urge to touch his pocket and draw attention to it.

“Yes. I believe you’ve met him already, but it would be useful for him to show you around the building, as he’ll be the mission lead today.” The elevator dings to a stop and Pierce motions him out. “He’s a good man, Rumlow. A…_blunt_ instrument, but he knows how to obey orders.”

_Can’t text worth a damn, though_, Steve thinks, and then bites his tongue. He falls into step beside Pierce again and lets him lead him to an office off the corridor. Once they’re inside, he waits for Pierce to sit at the large, imposing desk before sitting down himself. Pierce gives him a genial smile.

“No needs for such deference, Captain! After all, we’re on the same team, aren’t we?”

Feeling slightly confused, Steve sits. There’s a moment where he and Pierce regard each other. This is the first time he’s seen the secretary close-up, aside from their brief and less-than-ideal introduction straight after the Battle of New York. Pierce is a tall man, powerfully built beneath that impeccable suit. He must have been imposing in his youth; he still is now, though he radiates influence and connections rather than the pure physical strength he might have had a couple of decades ago. Steve’s just wondering whether he should try to say something when finally, Pierce breaks the silence.

“We obviously cannot speak as freely as I’d like to here, Captain, but allow me to welcome you to the Capitol and to STRIKE. Thank you for agreeing to our change of schedule at such short notice.”

Steve has no idea what he means by this, but decides to hedge his bets by agreeing.

“Thank you, sir, and no problem. The speeded-up schedule worked for me too.”

Pierce gives him a blinding smile, and Steve wonders what on Earth could possibly have drawn Pierce and Fury together in the first place. They’re like opposite poles of a magnet; Fury repelling, while Pierce drags you in.

“It’s an honor to meet you at last, Captain. My father served in the 101st, you know. From a Screaming Eagle to a Howling Commando.” He gestures between them, giving a brief chuckle at his own joke. “A living legend, back from the dead! And of course, there’s so much we didn’t know about you, Captain. It was such a surprise to find you again and to learn…when Rumlow told me what you said in that elevator, well. Imagine my surprise! And my delight.”

Pierce is full-on beaming at him, while Steve desperately wonders whether he’s said anything to Rumlow in an elevator besides ‘hello.’ Thankfully, he doesn’t have to say anything, because Pierce is still in full flow.

“I’m so glad to know you share our ideals. Our vision of a better world. Of course, it looks slightly different now. We have to dress ourselves in different colors.”

He gives Steve a significant look, and Steve has a sudden flash of memory back to Rumlow’s text, now that he can decode it.

_Working on an outfit 4u2 bt that might take a little time gotta wait for pears to sign off._

_Pears. Pierce. _He’s been freaking out about fucking _fruit_ for days, and it’s just that Rumlow is either a fucking idiot or he doesn’t care enough about proper spelling. Or both. Steve wants to laugh, but this is the worst possible time to get the giggles. That does at least clear up the issue of the outfit, though.

_Guess I’d better show some appreciation. _“I really like it,” he says, gesturing to himself.

Pierce gives him a benevolent smile.

“One day, you’ll have to tell me the story of how you came to join the cause. Perhaps in more secluded circumstances.” He gestures regretfully all around the room. “It’s so very difficult to speak in true privacy these days, Captain, but I would love to know how you got here, despite all the obstacles.”

“Oh, I took my bike,” Steve says, relieved that he’s been asked a question he can answer. “Fury didn’t want me to, but I insisted.”

Pierce blinks at him for a moment, and then bursts out laughing.

“Very good, very good!” he chuckles. “Never give too much away!” He clears his throat, his expression somber once more. “Our work has shaped the century, Captain. Always hidden, never acknowledged, working towards order in the chaos. Perhaps one day, it will be over. Perhaps sooner than we’d thought, now that we have you on our side.” He gives Steve a big wink. “But for now, we go on, behind the scenes. We never know who’s listening, so it’s best to keep your allegiance a secret for now.”

_Good thing Natasha advised me to play dumb_, Steve thinks, _because_ _I must look dumber than dumb._ He has no idea what work Pierce means, but Pierce clearly thinks that he does, looking at him so expectantly that it feels like a test.

“The Red Skull,” Pierce says, after a moment, and there’s a tone in his voice that Steve can’t place. “You must tell me how. What happened between you, what he must have said to you.”

Steve blinks. He’s just wondering what on Earth he can say to get out of this when there’s a knock at the door. Even the sight of Rumlow in tac gear entering the room after Pierce calls “come in!” doesn’t make his heart sink quite as much as it might have done. Anything to escape this conversation.

Both he and Pierce stand up as Rumlow walks into the room. “Captain, Brock Rumlow,” Pierce says, gesturing between the two of them. “Let me reintroduce you.”

“Cap,” Rumlow says, extending a hand. His grip is extremely tight, or it would be for a normal human, and he holds onto Steve’s hand a little longer than Steve feels is strictly necessary, looking into Steve’s eyes as though he wants to see which of them blinks first.

Steve has to fight not to bristle, and, uncharacteristically, blinks first.

Rumlow looks at Pierce.

“There’s been a change of plan, sir,” he says. “Mission is deploying right away. I’ll bring Captain Rogers out to the hangar.”

“Very good, Agent Rumlow,” Pierce says. “Good thing you wore that suit,” he says to Steve, and _almost_ winks again, Steve thinks. “I’ll leave you two gentlemen alone. It was wonderful to meet you properly, Captain. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.”

He shakes Steve’s hand again and nods to Rumlow, then sweeps out of the room.

“C’mon, Cap,” Rumlow says, after a moment, gesturing to the door. “Not much time. Fill you in on the way?”

“Sure,” Steve says, letting Rumlow lead, because what else can he do? He follows him out of the room, keeping pace, until they get into an elevator at the end of the corridor.

“Sorry to spring this on you,” Rumlow says, not sounding sorry at all, as the elevator zooms upwards, “But we’ve had to reschedule the op. Was gonna be tomorrow, but we think they might have been tipped off we’re coming, so we can’t waste any time.”

“Where are we going?” Steve asks, determined not to let Rumlow see he’s on the back foot.

“Duluth,” Rumlow answers. “Should be an hour or so’s flight.”

Steve has never been to Duluth; the tour selling war bonds had never made it that far north. When Rumlow doesn’t say anything more, he says, “What’s the mission?”

“Counterterrorism,” Rumlow says, which doesn’t really explain anything. He gives Steve a sideways glance and then barks a laugh. “There’ll be a fuller briefing on the way, Cap, don’t wanna repeat myself.”

“Right,” Steve says, not knowing what else to say. He wants to punch that smug grin, but that’s probably not the right way to go here. They wait for a few more moments in silence, before the elevator dings and Rumlow says, “Anyway, we’re here now. Rest of the guys’ll be on the plane.”

The elevator opens onto the roof, where there’s a jet waiting. Steve lets Rumlow shepherd him up the steps and to one of the two remaining empty seats. He looks at the team as he sits down. It’s a small group; there are four others, all men. He recognizes one of them from before, whose name tag says “Rollins,” and the rest of them all look very similar to him, almost like someone’s got a couple of cookie cutters somewhere and an endless supply of creep dough. They even give him identical nods and grunts as he buckles himself in. Something about them makes him feel unsettled, though he can’t quite put his finger on what. Nobody says anything.

It makes him long for the Howling Commandos, before he remembers that by now, they’re all either ancient or dead, and then he just misses the rest of the Avengers.

_Bucky is alive_, says his own voice in his head again, and he shakes it impatiently, trying to force himself to pay attention to what his new teammates are saying. Rumlow has a word with the pilot, then sits next to Steve, strapping himself in as the jet takes off.

“We’ll be partners for this mission,” he says. “Nice to work with someone with a common interest.”

He gives him a significant look that sends a shiver down Steve’s spine – _what does he mean? – _while opposite him, Rollins snickers.

“Uh, thanks,” Steve says, because he has to say _something._ “So, what’s the op?”

“Bit different than what you’re used to, I bet,” Rumlow chuckles, which isn’t much of an answer. It’s infuriating how nobody here will _tell _him anything. “Nasty motherfuckers, but they’re pretty dumb too.”

“What’ve they done?”

“The usual,” Rumlow shrugs. “Drugs. Human trafficking. One of their guys did a school shooting about a week ago, though nobody’s really made the connection. Press tried to pass it off as a ‘lone wolf’ thing like always.”

Steve is lost. “A…school shooting?”

“Guy just walks into a school, shoots a bunch of kids and teachers. Didn’t get that many this time.” A _school. _Rumlow sounds so _casual_ about it, Jesus Christ. “Guess they didn’t have that back in your day, huh?”

“No, of course not.” _Just Nazis. _“But why didn’t anyone make a bigger deal out of it? Did it get hushed up?”

“Think it was in some of the papers,” Rollins says. “Needs to be a big one, to make the news these days. Like over thirty kills. Or be, like, an elementary school. Anyway.” He turns to Rumlow. “Are these the same guys that had those prostitutes a couple of weeks back?”

“Nah,” Rumlow says. “That was the Algerians. These guys are home-grown.”

“Shame we didn’t get a chance to sample the merchandise,” Rollins leers, slapping Rumlow on the back, and Rumlow snorts. Steve fights to not bristle at the implications of that and to focus more on what Rumlow is saying.

He feels like the more Rumlow talks, the less he understands. “But what are we doing now? Is it another school?”

“Nah, this is way bigger. They’re due to get a big shipment of weapons today. Nasty shit too. Fury wants to get his hands on them before they do. Says it’s to keep it out of their hands, but I don’t know if he wants to just put them into ours.”

“Yeah, probably, that motherfucker’s hella shady,” Rollins agrees. “Glad he’s on our side.”

_Stop the bad guys getting the bad weapons. _Okay. Steve can do that. He forces himself not to think about the last bit.

“How many of them are there?” he asks.

“Anywhere between six and twenty,” Rumlow replies. “Difficult to get a handle on exactly how many. Their membership seems to fluctuate a bit. Like I said, they’re pretty fucking dumb. They don’t know how to deal with defectors, that’s how we know about ‘em in the first place.” He stretches, displaying a muscled chest and abs that Steve stares at despite himself, because _damn_. “Not gonna be much of an issue though, Cap. Stick with me, I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

He winks, and Steve feels an unsettling combination of feelings in the pit of his stomach that he doesn’t want to analyze too much.

“Anyway, we’re almost there.” Rumlow raises his voice. “Everyone, wheels down in five. Drop site is ten minutes from the port, we’ll be getting a truck from there. Get ready.”

The ride over is tense, quiet. All of the banter from before has disappeared, replaced with a focused silence that reminds Steve of waiting for missions during the war. He almost says something, but holds it in; it’s not like the guys here seem like they’d appreciate stories of his life seventy years ago. Once they arrive, they creep silently around the warehouses at the docks until they find the right one. Rumlow directs them inside in pairs using familiar hand signals, leaving himself and Steve for last.

When it comes to it, it’s hardly a fight at all. There are ten guys in the warehouse, but they’re clearly not combat trained. Even if they’d managed to get their hands on the weapons, Steve’s not sure they’d know one end of a gun from another. It seems like overkill that SHIELD sent a team of six to take them down. STRIKE are ruthless, leaving no survivors while he’s still floundering; somehow it’s different fighting these guys than it is fighting aliens or Stark’s simulations, or even the Krauts.

Rumlow in particular is brutal, taking out three guys single-handed, and every time he does it, he looks over to Steve like he wants his approval. Steve wonders whether he should applaud, or offer marks out of ten.

It takes longer to pack up the weapons than it did to fight. The team wraps them delicately and carefully, which surprises Steve, given the brutality he’s just witnessed.

“We’re counting ‘em in and we’re counting ‘em out!” Rumlow growls, several times. “Want to make sure they all make it back to SHIELD.”

There are a couple of snickers, but no arguments. Steve wonders whether this has come up before.

It takes a couple of hours to pack everything and load it into the truck. The mood is much lighter on the way back, which makes the journey home a lot more comfortable. The STRIKE team clearly want him to feel welcome; there’s a lot of back-slapping, jostling, ragging on each other, but Steve doesn’t get most of the references they’re making. It’s like they’re all part of a secret club that he’s not invited to, except sometimes, they look at him significantly and wink or nod, which is somehow worse than them not including him at all. Once they’re back at base and everyone’s showered, Rumlow corners him in the locker room and asks him if he’d like to go get a beer.

Steve looks at his watch.

“It’s 2 am,” he says, cautiously, because he knows this could be a chance to talk to Rumlow, take advantage of the high spirits and Rumlow’s barely concealed eagerness to spend more time with him. But the thought of spending even another second in this atmosphere makes him want to scream.

“Plenty of 24-hour bars,” Rumlow says, taking a step forward. Steve makes himself stand his ground.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I think I need to get back to the apartment.” He has a sudden flash of inspiration. “Need to debrief with the Avengers.”

Rumlow’s face falls for a split second, but he recovers quickly.

“Oh, sure,” he says, and Steve suddenly has an insane urge to make him feel better, along with not wanting to miss the chance to get more information out of him. “Maybe next time?” he says, and to his relief, Rumlow looks mollified.

“Sure thing, buddy!” he says, clapping Steve on the back, and Steve has to repress a shudder.

* * *

Steve doesn’t go back to his apartment, however.

“You should have gone with him!” Tony chastises him, as Steve had known he would.

Even though it’s past 3 am by the time Steve gets to the safe house and is sure he hasn’t been followed, most of the Avengers are still awake when he messages them. Natasha sets up the video call practically instantly, and once the screen loads, Steve can see Bruce and Tony sitting next to her, both clutching mugs.

He’s filled them in on the mission by the time Clint and Thor arrive a few minutes later, and Steve’s a little disconcerted to see that Clint is in his boxers, while Thor seems to be wearing a dressing gown and fluffy slippers.

“Don’t,” Natasha says to Tony, and Steve feels exhaustedly grateful. “This kind of stuff takes time, you need to scope out the terrain first. How did it go with STRIKE, Steve?”

He shrugs. “I think it was okay? Rumlow’s being a bit…,” he hesitates, not knowing whether the word will give him away, but too tired to think of anything else, “…overfamiliar?”

“Well, he’s probably seen your ass in that suit,” Tony says, and Steve is gratified to see Natasha hit him.

“Rumlow always gave me the creeps,” Natasha said. “Even from a distance.”

“Just make sure you get the bastard next time, Cap,” Clint says, unusually vehement, and Steve wonders whether it’s because of what Natasha said. Maybe there’s a history there.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Next chance I get, I’ll talk to Rumlow.”

Clint nods approvingly, looking oddly serious for a man with bedhead, and Natasha says, “How did it go with Pierce? Did you manage to record anything?”

“_Shit_,” Steve says. He’d forgotten about that in all the chaos of the afternoon and evening. “I’m sorry. He met me in the foyer, I didn’t get a chance to set it up properly. I tried calling you, but I guess it didn’t go through?”

Natasha shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “Oh well, too bad. Did he say anything interesting?”

“Not really.” He decides not to admit that he wasn’t really sure _what_ it was that Pierce was saying. “Just stuff like welcome to D.C., carry on SHIELD’s mission, that kind of thing. Said something about my new suit. I can’t really get a read on the guy. And Rumlow interrupted us pretty early on.”

“I’m really starting to dislike that guy and I’ve never even met him,” Tony says, and Steve laughs.

“He doesn’t improve on acquaintance,” he says dryly.

“Indeed, he sounds most dishonorable,” Thor agrees. “It is unbecoming of a warrior.”

“Any chance you’ll see Pierce again, Steve?” Bruce asks, before Thor can start discoursing on chivalry. “Would be good to have another talk with him.”

“I haven’t got anything planned,” he says. “I could try to set something up?”

“Did your parents know him, Tony? Did you?” Bruce asks, and Tony jumps, taken off-guard by the question.

There’s a tense moment while everyone waits interestedly to hear Tony’s answer. Everyone, even Thor, knows that Tony’s parents are a touchy subject.

“He must have known Dad a bit,” Tony says, slowly. “The World Security Council oversees SHIELD, so they must have been in some of the same meetings, but I don’t think he ever mentioned him. Pierce was the one that appointed Fury, but that was after Dad’s time.”

“I wonder if he knew Peggy,” Steve says, mostly to himself.

“Sorry?” Bruce says.

“Oh, nothing,” Steve says. “Just wondering if he knew Peggy Carter.” He yawns, unable to stop himself.

“You should go back to your apartment,” Natasha says. “SHIELD are probably watching to see when you get home. Don’t want them getting suspicious if you don’t come back.”

She’s right, of course, but he _really _doesn’t want to go back to that empty apartment.

“Keep us updated,” Tony says, after a moment. He’s looking at Steve with a strange expression. “See if you can pin Rumlow down.”

Clint shudders, and Steve has to laugh.

“Not like _that!_” Tony says, scandalized. “I swear, Barton. It’s like living with a teenager.”

“Good _night_,” Natasha says, as Clint prepares to throw a cushion.

“I wish you a pleasant rest,” Thor says, by way of farewell, and then Steve’s back to being alone, spending a stupid amount of time just staring at the empty screen before he snaps out of it. _Shit._ He really _is_ lonely.

_Gotta finish this mission as soon as possible,_ he thinks, getting up and grabbing his bag to go back to his sad, bare apartment, _before I lose my fucking mind._


	4. Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot

**Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot**

(U.S. Army) Radio speak for ‘Lost Like A Mother Fucker’ (NATO phonetic alphabet).

After finally getting back to his apartment, Steve crashes into bed. When he wakes up, it’s dark outside again. He gropes for his phone on the nightstand to look at the time and realizes that he’s slept for over twenty-four hours, the longest since they dug him out of the ice. Among the messages on his phone, there’s an email from Tony, with the subject line _Re: Carter_. Ignoring everything else, he opens it, trying to stop his hands from shaking at the sight of her name. It’s just a couple of lines – _Fury didn’t tell you the whole truth in that file about Carter. Her health’s not that great, but I’m sure she’d appreciate a visit. Keep it to yourself though – _and an address in downtown D.C.

Steve puts his phone down and thinks, his hands still trembling. Why would Fury lie to him about Peggy? Why would he have given him that file with an address in England if she’s been here all this time? To stop him from digging deeper? Could she have moved since Fury had given him that file? Had Peggy herself requested that Fury not tell him the truth? Did she want to keep Steve away?

He knew that Peggy had gone on to found SHIELD, of course; he’d read everything he could get his hands on as soon as he’d found _that_ out. He’d known that she’d married, had children, moved on, and the last thing he’d want to do would be to upset her by bringing back the past. She’s the only person left now who knows him from before, and he’s overwhelmed with the desire to see her again, just once, if only to apologize for standing her up all those decades ago.

And why would Tony tell him something this personal? It surprises him, though maybe it shouldn’t. He knows he cares more than he lets on: he’s seen the thing that Ms. Potts has on her desk, the ‘proof that Tony Stark has a heart.’ He’s lived in the Tower for a couple of weeks and seen the customizations that Tony put on every floor, designed to make each of them feel comfortable. Tony loves being a pain in everyone’s ass, but Steve knows how much it means to him to finally be part of a team, because he’s felt that too, and he recognizes it.

_I’m sure she’d appreciate a visit._ Would she? Really? From him?

Steve wrestles with himself for a moment before realizing that there’s nothing he can do about it now; it’s the middle of the night, and he _really_ needs to eat something. Suddenly grateful for the app on his phone that can order him a pizza whenever he so chooses, he selects something at random for whatever meal this should be – dinner? Breakfast? – and showers while he waits for it to arrive. He watches the sun come up as he eats, barely tasting the food, still undecided about whether he should visit Peggy.

He kills time and distracts himself by flicking through the other messages. One of them is from Rumlow, inviting him to a training session later that day, and he accepts the invitation, hoping he’ll get another chance to question him. Another is the Avengers teasing Thor about not understanding references to someone called Harry Potter, which Steve doesn’t understand either. There are several administrative emails from SHIELD about various meetings which he doesn’t need to attend, thank God, because they all sound dull as hell. Natasha has sent him a picture of a golden retriever holding an American flag in its mouth.

In between reading them all, he keeps flicking back to Tony’s email.

Eventually, he finds himself packing up a backpack for the training session, lacing up his sneakers, and heading out on foot, taking a leisurely route via a coffee shop and a detour via the National Mall. Then, realizing that he really can’t kid himself any longer and that he’d planned to do this all along, he heads for the address that Tony sent him.

The building, he realizes when he gets there, is an assisted living community, and it’s this, somehow, despite the fact that he can do math and that he knows how long it’s been, that brings it home just how old Peggy is. How old _he_ should be. _Stupid, so stupid._ Maybe she won’t even recognize him.

_Don’t be such a fucking coward_, he tells himself, and he hears the thought in her voice, not his. Before he can lose his nerve, he finds her apartment and rings the bell.

It takes a little while for her to answer the door, though he knows she’s there; there’s a light on inside. He’s just giving himself over to panic – what if her husband is in there too? What if he’s intruding? What if she really had wanted to hide from him? – when the door opens slowly, and Peggy’s standing there.

It’s unmistakably her, despite the age. She looks smaller, diminished, her formerly chestnut hair now entirely silver and her straight back a little stooped, but she’s still Peggy. Her eyes are the same: that same gaze, full of life and energy, unwavering, and able to see straight through him, just like always.

She stares at him for a moment and then says, “Steve?”, like she’s a little unsure of herself.

Not knowing what else to do, Steve nods, and he’s rewarded with the sight of an expression of delighted pleasure lighting up her face.

“My dear boy!” she says, still sounding so English despite what must have been decades in America. “How wonderful to see you! You must come in!” She stands aside and ushers him inside, pointing down the corridor and presumably towards the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

“That’d be great,” he says, and he follows her, taking a seat at a small table after she points him to it. The kitchen is small, but bright; it’s full of photographs which, judging by the outfits and hairstyles, come from a wide variety of eras. He sees a wedding photograph and pictures of Peggy and an unknown man holding babies, which grow into children, teenagers, and adults in wedding outfits and holding babies of their own.

Peggy is busying herself with making coffee, moving slowly but surely, chattering away as she does.

“I knew they’d found you, of course; I read the papers, and even if I didn’t, it’s the sort of thing my family tease me about. I hadn’t decided whether or not I wanted to see you. But how did you know where to find me?”

When he tells her, she looks stunned.

“_Tony?_ Tony told you?”

Steve nods.

“Yes. He sent me a message yesterday. I guess you two know each other, right, with you and Howard founding SHIELD?”

Peggy sighs. “We _were_ close.” She points to a photo Steve hadn’t previously noticed, featuring Howard with a glamorous-looking woman and a small dark-haired boy. She looks downcast. “When Tony was young, our families spent quite a bit of time together, as much as we could, given Howard’s elevated circles.” Her raised eyebrow tells him exactly what she’d made of _that_. “But then Howard and Maria died, and Tony…withdrew.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know how much you know about him, but he hasn’t always been the most, well, _stable._ Even before all of this Iron Man business. He spent most of his life trying to do everything Howard hated, and it worked, but then when he died, I think he felt guilty about it all. I tried to reach out to him, but he was angry, pushed me away. He told me,” she swallows, the pain evident in her voice, “that I had no business trying to take care of him just because his own mother was dead.”

“What?” Steve says, louder than he means to.

“Don’t be angry, Steve. He must care about you, to have given you my address. I’d no idea he even knew it. It takes a lot for a Stark to swallow their pride.”

She sighs, but keeps talking, almost to herself.

“Tony always found me slightly difficult, I think. Howard spent so much time looking for you, it used to drive Tony crazy. He’d be gone for whole months sometimes. I think Tony thought that his dad was doing it for me, even after I married Daniel. Howard was a great man, but he wasn’t the greatest of fathers.”

Her voice wavers, and she sniffs. Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he busies himself with another cup of coffee that he doesn’t really want.

“When I heard they’d dug you up, like you were back from the dead…,” she continues after a moment, absently twisting the wedding ring on her left hand. “I waited, you know. Even after I heard the plane go down, even after the transmission cut out. I went back every day for a month. Then I gave up.” She gives him a mischievous grin. “I’m glad you finally made it back, even if you _are_ late. Always thought you were too damn stubborn to just give up like that.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have kept you waiting,” Steve says, and Peggy laughs.

“Waiting?! Do I look like I waited?” She gestures to the photographs. “I got on with my life! I loved you, Steve, I really did, but I couldn’t have waited around in a dream forever. I had too much to be doing.” There’s softness in her tone though, fondness, and Steve doesn’t feel a sting.

“Tell me about your family,” he says.

Peggy does. She talks to him about her husband, her children, her nieces and nephews, her grandchildren. Her work in the SSR and the founding of SHIELD. Pride radiates from her voice as she does so, and sorrow too, at the loss of her husband and friends. It hurts, a little, to see that someone he’d loved so much has gone so far without him, but he’s relieved to discover he doesn’t feel any jealousy, even when he’d hoped to have all of that with her himself.

He checks his watch and realizes he’s been talking to Peggy for two hours.

“Peggy, I need to go,” he says apologetically. “I’m meant to be at a training session in an hour. I’m sorry.”

“You young people,” Peggy scoffs, but he can tell she’s teasing. She takes the coffee cups as Steve gathers his jacket and bag, and he’s just about to ask her if she’d mind if he came by again when she asks, “Where’s Sergeant Barnes?”

For the second time in a day, there’s an unexpected name. He has to take a moment to mentally replay it, just to check he’s not mistaken, that she’s not trying to make some kind of joke, and then he says carefully, “What?”

“‘Buddy,’ or whatever ridiculous name you call him,” Peggy says imperiously, and suddenly it’s like being back in 1945. Her eyes are dancing with a familiar mischief, and Steve’s heart aches all over again. “That handsome fellow who’s always following you around like a guard dog. Acting like he’s God’s gift to women.”

Peggy had known full well that he’d called Bucky ‘Bucky,’ and why – nothing had ever escaped her for long – but she’d always acted as though she was confused by it, like it was some uncouth Yankee nonsense that was beneath her, and had insisted on calling him ‘Sergeant Barnes’ or, on one very memorable occasion when they’d all had a little too much to drink, ‘James Buchanananananan,’ before they all fell about laughing.

“Peggy,” he says slowly, because he’s still not sure if she’s trying to joke with him, even though the Peggy he knew would never have been that cruel. “Bucky…Bucky’s dead, Peggy. He died a long time ago.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “Oh! The train…. But I could have sworn…. I’m sorry. I get so confused sometimes.” She shakes her head, brow furrowed, like a dog trying to get rid of an irritating fly. “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

She looks troubled, her brow furrowed. He’s worried she might cry.

“It’s okay, Peggy,” he says, not knowing what else to do. “Don’t worry. Just a mistake.”

“I get lost in the past, sometimes,” she says urgently, like she’s desperately trying to tell him a secret before they run out of time. “I have trouble keeping track, when I’m tired. _Don’t let that happen to you, Steve_. Don’t. Promise me, whatever else happens, you’ll _live your life_.”

Her grip on his hand is surprisingly firm, or it would be surprising, if you’d never seen Peggy’s right hook.

“I promise, Peggy, I promise,” he says, because she’s looking really agitated now, even though he doesn’t feel like he’s done much living so far. Her face clears.

“Oh, good.” She smiles, and it’s like the past two minutes never happened. “What was I saying?”

How can he answer that? He can’t tell her, not when it upset her so much to be confused. “Oh, I was just asking when I can come by again,” he manages, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Any time you like, my dear, though perhaps next time you should phone first. That way I can make sure I have less of a shock.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. She kisses him on the cheek as he leaves.

“Take care, Steve,” she says, like she really means it, and Steve wants to cry.

* * *

He _could_ get a cab to the training session, but he doesn’t feel like he wants to talk to another person for a while. Instead, he walks, forcing himself to focus on the route and not on that terrifying look he’d seen in Peggy’s eyes.

He’d seen it before, once, and he knew what it meant. On the top floor of the apartment building he’d lived in with his ma, there’d been an old lady who’d lost her memory like that. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had roamed the building looking for her sons who’d died in the war and crying whenever anyone told her why they weren’t there. He’d witnessed her heart breaking hundreds of times over, and every time had been like the first time for her. As a boy, Steve had been terrified of her, but Sarah had always been patient and kind, trying to break the news as gently as possible. It had lasted for years; she’d died shortly after Sarah had. By that time, she’d had no idea who she was either.

He can’t think about that happening to Peggy. He _can’t_. He _won’t_.

_Left here_, he tells himself, looking at the map on his phone. _Left here and then right in two blocks._

Despite his early start, he’s only just going to make it to the training session on time. _Good_. He doesn’t want time to think. He needs to _do_ something, keep himself busy, avoid having even a second to think about Peggy.

If that means he has to go spend time with Rumlow, then that’s what he’ll do.

Rumlow himself is waiting for him in the foyer of the Triskelion.

“Hey Cap!” he says, smiling in a way that somehow doesn’t reach his eyes and makes him look like a barracuda. “Figured you wouldn’t know where the gym was, so waited down here. You ready?”

Steve gives a curt nod. _Let’s just get this over with_.

On the way to the elevator, he wonders what the best way of getting Rumlow to talk is, and wishes that Natasha was here to ask. _Though her methods would probably be a bit different from mine._

“So, um,” he starts, then stops again, because Rumlow interrupts him.

“How much can you bench-press?” he asks.

“Um,” Steve says. “I don’t know.”

“Twice your body weight? Three times? Four?” Rumlow’s brow furrows. “_Five_?”

“Um, I….”

“I can do four,” Rumlow says, nodding insistently. “I’ll show you, when we get to the gym.”

“Okay.” He feels like he should offer some statistics of his own, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“I can do 300 pull-ups, no problem, too. S’what I usually do. My daily workout.”

Steve knows he should be impressed by this, so he gives a low whistle. It sounds pathetic even to him.

“So what do you do to keep in shape?” Rumlow asks him. “Must be a lot. Muscles like that.”

“Running. Sparring,” Steve replies, and then he remembers something else. “Oh! I’ve been doing some spinning. With Miss Potts and Agent Romanov.”

He’d wanted to say ‘Pepper and Nat, but something had stopped him.

Rumlow goggles at him. _“Spinning_? That girly shit? C’mon Cap, you a fairy or something?”

Steve bristles. “No, it’s just fun.”

“_Fun_? It’s not meant to be fun, Cap. Order through pain. That’s how you find the real men.” Rumlow gives him a significant nod. “C’mon. Let’s see what you can do.”

He hates this, people who try to make it a competition. He’d seen enough of it back before the serum. And after too. It never ended well for those men.

He can’t quite shake the feeling that Rumlow’s watching him as they change into their gym gear. He can’t seem to catch him at it, but every time he turns away, he feels his gaze like it’s a laser focused on his back. He feels so awkward, and he wrenches up his gym shorts in an effort to avoid being undressed in the guy’s presence for a second longer than necessary.

There’s an odd feeling as he does it, like he’s using strength that’s not his own. Then there’s an ominous ripping sound and a horrible silence, into which Rumlow says, “Cap?”

Slowly, wishing he could do anything else, Steve says, “Yes?”

“Did you just rip your shorts?”

_Jesus_. All of the blood in his body has rushed to his face. His head feels like it’s going to explode from the pressure. _Why, fucking hell, why? How could this have happened?_

“Yes,” he says again, in probably the world’s quietest voice, holding both halves of his shorts and wondering whether it’s possible to die of embarrassment. Even in the very beginning, right after he’d gotten the serum, he’d never managed to damage clothing. Of all the times to do it.

“Do you want to borrow my spares?”

Rumlow says it quickly, sounding horribly, horrendously eager about it.

_Shit_.

It _isn’t _possible to die of embarrassment. If it was, he’d have done it by now. What choice does Steve have, though? He has to train with Rumlow. He has to _talk _to Rumlow and try to find out what the fuck is going on with that bank. Which means he’s going to have to wear Rumlow’s clothes. _Fuck_.

“Sure,” he says, and actually, _that_ was the world’s quietest voice. Wordlessly, Rumlow hands him a pair of plain blue gym shorts, and Steve pulls them on as fast as he can while also treating them as gently as possible.

Rumlow starts walking out of the changing rooms without a shirt on, as Steve is pulling out his own t-shirt from his bag.

“You coming, Cap?” he calls out, and Steve thinks _fuck it_, and follows Rumlow, leaving his own shirt half-hanging out of his bag.

Okay. This is weird, but it doesn’t have to be. Trying to be fair, he tries to think about why, exactly, he has such a problem with the guy when he’s gone out of his way to be friendly. Is it just that he’s so different to the Avengers? Are guys different now when they’re trying to make friends? Is it all just innocent in the name of friendly team building? Maybe he’s been letting himself get paranoid. He could use a friend here in D.C.; maybe he should give Rumlow a chance.

It takes all of five minutes in the gym with Rumlow to make that resolve disappear. There’s just something _off_ about him. He insists on bench-pressing far more than looks comfortable, keeping unwavering eye contact with Steve while he does it, even though there’s a vein standing out on his forehead that looks like it might explode. After the bench-presses, he drops and starts doing push-ups, his head bobbing up to check that Steve’s watching. Steve wonders whether he’s here as anything more than an audience. It _is _impressive that Rumlow can do all of this; Steve wonders whether he’s on some kind of performance-enhancing drugs. But there’s a bizarre, unsettling competitiveness to it that he can’t stand. Once or twice, he tries asking questions – “How long have you been with SHIELD?” “What’s the next STRIKE op?” “What did you do before this?” – but he gets only impatient grunts in reply.

When Rumlow _finally_ stops acting like a gym-driven peacock, sweat dripping down his face and a mad gleam in his eyes as he gets up and says, “So, wanna spar?”, Steve feels his heart sink even further.

“Sure,” he says, handing Rumlow a towel and a bottle of water. Rumlow practically bounds over to the mats, gesturing for Steve to come too. Then, almost without warning, he aims a punch at him. It’s fast, brutal, and would be deadly to anyone who can’t fight like Steve can. Steve can tell from the way Rumlow’s going for him that he wants to win rather than train, and he finds himself pulling his punches just to keep it from getting awkwardly competitive. Once or twice, he catches a glint in Rumlow’s eyes that makes him actually fear him, which is crazy; he knows Rumlow would be no match for him if he was using anywhere near his full strength.

_It would be so satisfying to just punch the guy_, he thinks as they dance around the mats. All his fury and frustration from the last few days suddenly wells up in him, the confusing meeting with Pierce, his worries that he’ll screw this up for the team somehow, the distaste for Rumlow that he can’t quite explain, the loneliness that comes from losing his second team in two months, the look on Peggy’s face this morning…

Well, Steve was never a perfect soldier. The next time Rumlow comes at him, Steve gives in to his base impulses and punches him square in the jaw. Hard.

  
  
_Art by [cyclamental](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclamental/pseuds/cyclamental%20art)_   


Rumlow goes _flying_ in a satisfying arc across the gym mats and almost hits the wall on the other side of the room. He doesn’t get up.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit,_ Steve thinks in a panic, frozen to the spot._ What the fuck have I done? Please God, don’t let me have killed him._

How is he going to explain to SHIELD that he just punched a fellow agent in the jaw? He’ll _never_ be able to get anything out of him now, assuming he hasn’t killed or permanently injured him. _What the fuck came over me?_ He’s still frozen when Rumlow gives a groan and rolls over, a thin trickle of blood from his busted lip running down the side of his jaw.

_He’s still alive, then,_ Steve thinks, relief flooding through him. _Okay. At least there’s that_.

Rumlow groans again and gets unsteadily to his feet. Steve approaches him, but he’s wary, keeping a few feet back in case Rumlow decides to retaliate, even though he absolutely deserves it. He contemplates taking a couple of steps forward, wondering whether he should take a punch in return, but decides that’s too Catholic even for him.

Rumlow puts his hand to his mouth and looks at it when it comes away covered in blood with an awed expression. He grins.

_“Awesome_,” he says reverently, which is _absolutely not_ what Steve thought was going to happen. _“Cap_. You really are one of us.”

Steve is horrified and is almost about to mumble an apology when he realizes that this, somehow, is exactly the way to gain Rumlow’s trust. He gives a curt nod.

“Order through pain,” Rumlow continues, in the same awestruck tone. “I should have known. It’s an honor, sir.”

Rumlow makes a movement that looks a bit like a bow, and Steve wonders how hard he’d hit him. But he can’t waste this opportunity, not when Rumlow finally seems to have stopped trying to impress him.

“Go get cleaned up,” he says, fighting the urge to express any kind of concern or remorse, as that’s clearly not what Rumlow’s after. “I think we’re done here.”

Rumlow does as he’s told, and for a fleeting moment, Steve thinks _I could get used to this._ Then he snaps out of it, vaguely horrified at himself.

He showers, taking care to pick a stall at the opposite end of the block to Rumlow’s, dressing himself in there afterwards so as to avoid any potential encounter with him in the locker room. When he returns to the communal changing area, Rumlow is waiting there for him. The bleeding on his lip has almost stopped, but a bruise is starting to bloom in its place, which doesn’t make the grin he gives him any less horrible.

“You wanna go get a beer?” he asks, and Steve, seizing his chance, agrees.

Rumlow takes him to a bar a couple of blocks away from the Triskelion, clearly a regular haunt of his given the way the barman nods at him when he orders, getting Steve the same as him without even asking. It’s a typical bar: there’s a TV in the corner showing a football game with a crowd of guys clustered around it, a couple of pool tables, and the walls are covered with signed photos of famous patrons, most of them sports players or politicians Steve doesn’t recognize. Rumlow gestures to an empty table in the corner and they sit down.

For all his enthusiasm for Steve to have a beer with him, he doesn’t seem that keen on actually _talking_ to him. They manage a few exchanges, all prompted by Steve and mostly about Rumlow’s early life – his school, his training, his stint in the military before being recruited to SHIELD – but nothing more detailed. Steve doesn’t dare to be more direct in his questioning, so instead he spends a frustrating couple of hours talking in circles and hearing about Rumlow’s elementary school and watching him signal the barman for more drinks, changing his order to scotch halfway through the evening, and eating his way through a plate of buffalo wings and nachos. He thinks about giving up, having at least assuaged his conscience a little about having hit the guy, but part of him doesn’t want to waste the opportunity, doesn’t want to return to the team empty-handed once again. Wants, if he’s being honest, to prove that he can do this spy stuff too.

He wonders how to proceed. Should he suggest dinner somewhere? Ask Rumlow back to his apartment? He has no idea whether either of those would work, though Rumlow keeps stealing glances at him. More glances with each drink, which by now is quite a few. Suddenly, Rumlow looks almost nervous, and then he blurts out, “So, want to see something cool?”

Steve stills. He has no idea what this could be, but it’s obviously taken Rumlow a while to build up the Dutch courage to ask. He waits a couple of seconds, hoping against hope he sounds casual, and says, “Yeah?”

Rumlow looks like all his Christmases have come at once, and he springs to his feet, only a little unsteadily. “Yeah! C’mon then, got something to show you.” He’s already halfway to the door, throwing a mix of bills on the table, and turning back to call over his shoulder, “I think you’re gonna like this!”

Steve gets up, still unsure whether this was the right call and wishing he had his shield, but he can’t pass this opportunity up. Rumlow leads him for a couple of blocks, looking furtively around as though he’s afraid they might be followed.

“Where are we going?” Steve says, and Rumlow actually puts a finger to his lips and shushes him.

“Can’t say now. Can’t talk about it here. Need to show you. We’re almost there.”

Now that he’s got Steve to come on whatever crazy errand this is, Rumlow seems downright giddy.

“We’re still working on your outfit, by the way,” he says to Steve conspiratorially, and _Jesus Christ, _why does everyone here want to talk about his clothing? Is Rumlow so drunk he can’t remember Steve wearing the fucking thing two days ago?

“No, I got it, remember?” he says. “I wore it to the mission.”

“_Noooooo_,” Rumlow says emphatically, jabbing him on the shoulder. “No. This is something else. It’s not quite ready. But we haven’t forgotten. It’s gonna look great. _Fuckin’ great!_”

Steve is wondering whether he’s made a serious mistake going wherever they’re going when Rumlow suddenly comes to a stop, saying, “Here w’are.”

It’s the bank, Steve realizes, looking up. The Ideal Federal Savings Bank. It’s _the fucking bank vault he was sent here to investigate_, and Rumlow has led him right there. He fights the urge to clap his hands with glee.

“What’s this?” he says, trying to play dumb.

“Secret,” Rumlow says, not looking at him and entering a code into a hidden panel. A side door slides open. “Gotta be careful…we’re not s’posed to be in here. Just turning off all the alarms and video surveillance and shit.”

The bank is silent, and a little cold. They walk through the atrium, Rumlow still shooting glances at him every so often, but saying nothing. When they get to the far wall, he enters a code into another keypad on the far wall, which opens to reveal a staircase.

“We’re heading to the vault,” Rumlow says. “That’s where we keep it.”

_It._ What the fuck? What is Rumlow going to show him down here? Or is it a trap, to lure him somewhere where Rumlow can attack him. Or…make a pass at him? If he _does_ want to do that, he’s got a pretty fucked-up sense of romance, but Steve’s not sure how to interpret all of these signals. Rumlow does seem to be getting more and more excited about it, whatever it is.

He wishes more than ever that he had his shield.

They take the stairs, Rumlow still a little unsteady. At least that’ll give Steve an advantage if it does come to a fight. At the bottom of the stairwell, Rumlow fumbles along the wall for a light switch, and the corridor is suddenly illuminated in sickly yellow light. Steve can’t repress a shudder; there’s a feeling of cold and dampness down here that clings to his bones and a heavy atmosphere that somehow manages to convey misery and fear. It smells weird too, like a mix between a cave and a urinal. He wouldn’t be surprised to see water dripping from the ceiling.

“C’mon, Cap,” Rumlow says, indicating a door to their left, which opens out into a large, low-ceilinged room with panels all over the walls. It feels out of place in a bank; there’s loads of high-tech equipment that he doesn’t recognize. He wonders whether he can sneak his phone out of his pocket and start taking pictures, whether any of this stuff would mean something to Tony, or Natasha.

In the center, there’s a chair, with screens on either side and some kind of weird contraption above it. It reminds Steve of a dentist’s chair, but far more sinister. There’s something about it that makes him not want to look.

“What’s this?”

“It’s where we keep it. Come on, we need to go through, it’s over here.”

Rumlow is pointing to something in the corner of the room. It’s…a tube, Steve realizes. A long, metal tube with a dark glass window at the top, although he can’t see inside it clearly. It’s even colder in here than it was in the corridor. Steve is suddenly seized by the crazy idea that the tube is an elevator to somewhere, and then he peers harder in the dim light and makes out a face in there, covered by a mask and goggles.

There’s a man in the tube. _What the actual fuck._

He jumps backward instinctively. Why the fuck has Rumlow brought him here to show him a frozen man? Is it a warning? Something that happens to people who cross him?

He tries to speak, but he can only get as far as “What…? How…?” The rest of his voice has died in his throat.

“Wait a minute,” Rumlow says, waving an impatient hand and walking over to the control panel. “I need to defrost him.”

So the guy isn’t dead, just frozen. _Just_ frozen, Steve thinks. It’s like he’s talking about…about _dinner_, or something. There’s a _person_ in there. Who gets _defrosted_. And Rumlow’s talking about it as though it’s normal, like this guy gets defrosted on a regular basis. It’s not like being frozen and surviving isn’t _possible_, Steve knows that firsthand, but to do it so casually…there must be some kind of enhancement at play here, for this to even be viable.

Rumlow presses some buttons and the tube slides up slowly, revealing that the man is connected to some kind of machinery, which must be keeping him alive. He’s dressed in combat pants and boots and a sleeveless vest, which reveals the fact that one of his arms appears to be made entirely of metal. Lights come on over the top of the tube, and Rumlow quickly presses another button.

“Don’t want to wake him up completely…keep it cold, keep him asleep, just wanna show you.”

“What am I looking at?” Steve asks, and he’s proud of how steady his voice is.

Rumlow is looking at him like a dog that’s just dropped its master’s favorite shoes by his feet, practically panting for Steve’s approval.

“It’s the Winter Soldier.”

This is clearly supposed to mean something to Steve, but as much as he wracks his brain, he can’t think of anything.

“You might have heard it called ‘The Asset’?

Still nothing. _Shit_. Is he supposed to know this? What is he meant to say? Steve wishes fervently that he’d had more time to read the files Tony sent him one more time before coming here, because he can’t remember anything about a soldier or an asset.

“Aw, c’mon, Cap, don’t they tell you anything?” Rumlow says, looking impatient now.

“That’s a man,” he says, hedging.

“Not just any man!” Rumlow says proudly. “The fist of HYDRA.”

Steve shakes his head, thinking he must have misheard.

“Of what?”

Before Rumlow can answer, there’s an anguished-sounding beeping from the machine, and a whine of electricity and what sounds like a charge going off.

“Shit,” Rumlow mutters, and turns back to the control panel. “What’d I do…?”

Everything Rumlow is pressing seems to be making things worse. The lights above the tube come on again, and there’s a sudden hiss of escaping gas. The temperature in the room increases noticeably, and an automated voice says, “Initiating wake-up procedure.” It sounds nothing like Jarvis.

“No no no no no!” Rumlow says angrily, punching the control panel, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to reverse the sequence; the mask is being lifted away, and the man inside slumps forward. Acting on instinct, Steve darts forward to catch him before he hits the ground, and he crashes into Steve’s shoulder. Steve staggers under his weight as the man takes a huge gasp, chest heaving, and opens his eyes, looking groggy and confused before blinking and focusing on Steve.

Steve finds himself looking him directly in the face, and he nearly drops him.

“Bucky?” he says, before he’s even thought about it, because if he thought about it, it wouldn’t make any sense.

_Bucky is alive_, Loki had said.

Steve is positive it’s him. He doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know why, but this man, with wild hair and a metal arm who was until very recently standing frozen in a tube, is his dead best friend. He might know nothing else, but he knows this one thing.

Bucky looks at him and says something in a language Steve doesn’t know, but which is possibly Russian. He then rises to stands to attention by Steve’s side. His movements are stiff, almost mechanical.

Rumlow looks at them like he’s not quite sure what to make of this development.

Steve very calmly decides to put the question of _what in the absolute fuck is happening_ to one side for now while he deals with the immediate problem of _the fucking psycho who has been keeping his best friend frozen in a fucking tube._

“Cap?” Rumlow says, sounding unsure, but before anything else can happen, Bucky steps forward and punches him savagely in the face with his metal arm.

Rumlow hits the floor instantly for the second time that day, out cold this time and possibly missing a couple of teeth, and Bucky steps smoothly back to Steve’s side, and back to attention. Well, that makes things a lot easier.

“Bucky?” he says again, feeling a bit more confident this time.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the man who looks like Bucky says, and it’s his voice, _it’s his voice_. Even though there’s no spark of recognition in Bucky’s face at the name, no warmth whatsoever, after a split second, he seems to surmise that Steve is talking to him and gives a slight nod.

Deciding to maintain a facade of calm that he absolutely does not feel, Steve says, “Come with me,” and he leads Bucky out of the vault, his head still reeling.

* * *

He doesn’t know how they make it back to the safehouse without one or other of them freaking out. No alarms are triggered as they leave the building – _thank God_ for Rumlow disabling them on their way in and turning off the security feed to hide their visit. They begin by walking calmly and silently to the safehouse, Steve having had the presence of mind to make Bucky put on his jacket to cover up the arm just before they left the vault.

He doesn’t try to talk to him, because he doesn’t know what he can possibly say. Halfway through the walk, Bucky starts to slump into Steve’s side, and by the time they get to the safehouse, Steve is fully supporting him. He drops him onto the bed in the safehouse as gently as he can, and then sits down to look at him.

He looks awful, his hair long and lank and greasy, his skin clammy and pale. There’s some horrible stuff still lingering on his skin, a cold, jelly-like substance that must have come from the tube. Steve thinks wildly of how the Bucky he’d known would never have let himself get into this state. His Bucky had been dapper and impeccable almost all the time; this Bucky looks like he weighs over 200 pounds and like he’d shred anyone who got in his way.

Steve can’t stop replaying bits of the evening over and over again in his mind; the horror of that place, of seeing Bucky slowly coming out of the tube, the look in his eyes.

_I’ve got to get him out of here_, he thinks, and then all of a sudden he’s trembling uncontrollably, because _what the fuck_, _what the fuck_.

Loki had told him, hadn’t he? _Bucky is alive_. But how had he _known_? And why had he denied it when asked?

Somehow, despite everything, he must have managed to sleep curled up on the bed next to Bucky, both of them on top of the covers, because he’s woken later, mouth dry and eyes gritty, by the sound of his phone ringing. He looks around for it in confusion before realizing that it’s in his jacket pocket, which is still on Bucky, who’s stirring groggily on the bed beside him.

When he sees that it’s Rumlow calling him, he drops the phone and it goes to voicemail, only to start ringing again almost instantly. _Shit._ It’s not like Rumlow will just ignore the fact that he’s lost ‘the fist of HYDRA,’ the expression that’s been buzzing around Steve’s head like a swarm of wasps ever since he first heard it. He’s going to have to answer.

Taking a deep breath, he picks up the phone and says, “Hello?”

“Cap, hi,” Rumlow says, speaking quickly and very quietly. Steve almost has to strain to hear. “Do you…I mean, can you…I mean, last night. The Asset. Did you? I mean, what happened?”

He doesn’t seem able to finish a sentence, which is maybe not that surprising given the number of blows to the head he’d received, plus all the beers and scotches. Steve feels his brain moving faster than it ever has in his life.

“After he knocked you out, he attacked me too, and escaped. I…ran after him,” he says, improvising wildly, hoping against hope that Bucky will keep quiet until he can get rid of Rumlow. “He packed a hell of a punch. Slowed me down too. By the time I got out of the bank, he was gone.”

Rumlow swears more creatively than anyone Steve has ever met, even Dum Dum Dugan.

“Was there any trace of him? Any sign of where he’s gone?”

“No,” Steve says. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“_Shit_,” Rumlow says, with feeling. “I can’t tell anyone I’ve…I mean. I don’t got access to the trackers. Fuck!” He seems to remember that they were there together. “We gotta keep this to ourselves, Cap. Seriously.”

It’s the first time he’s ever been happy to agree with anything Rumlow’s said. “Will do,” he says. “Won’t tell a soul.”

“I’m going to need you to come in and help me search for him,” Rumlow says. “Covertly. How soon can you get here? This is urgent.”

_Fuck. _How is he going to get out of that? Then, he has a flash of inspiration.

“I can’t,” he says, and he’s amazed by how calm he sounds. “SHIELD have recalled me. Fury’s orders. Avengers’ business. Can’t discuss it.”

“What?!”

Next to him, Bucky gives a groan, and Steve tries to disguise it by talking loudly over him.

“Just now. I need to go back to New York ASAP.” Bucky groans again. “I’m packing to leave now,” Steve says, speaking faster and practically yelling. “I hope you find him. Bye.”

Then he presses the button to end the call and throws the phone to the other side of the room for good measure.

“C’mon, Bucky,” he says, “I’m taking us home.”


	5. on your six

**Got One’s Six**

(U.S. Army) Military slang for ‘got one's back.’ The soldier is like a clock with the face looking at 12 o'clock and the arms at 3 and 9 o'clock.

Leaving the safehouse on the Harley with Bucky riding shotgun probably isn’t one of his best ideas, but after the call with Rumlow, Steve just kind of panicked. He couldn’t fathom staying in D.C. for an hour longer, and getting back to the Tower seemed like the only safe thing to do. Not that he texted the team, or anything smart like that.

Getting Bucky into civilian clothing had been hard enough, until Steve figured to tell him that they’re undercover and that it’s part of the op. Then Bucky had been more than willing to wear the nondescript jeans and the t-shirt and hoodie found in the closet of the safehouse, which fit him well enough. He’d still complained about the sub-optimal ballistic protection, and Steve had had a brief hysterical thought of Pepper and Natasha taking Bucky shopping at Bergdorf Goodman for something more tailored; of the army of Marcs showing Bucky designer Kevlar.

He swings by the SHIELD-issued apartment to pick up his shield and duffle bag, while Bucky waits with the bike in an alleyway three blocks down after checking the whole area for cameras. Four times.

The drive is actually really nice, especially after they clear most of the morning rush hour, weaving through traffic. Bucky seems to instinctively know where each and every surveillance camera is and he easily directs Steve to stay out of their line of sight with a murmured instruction and the touch of his hand on Steve’s side. The skin burns under Steve’s jacket and shirt where Bucky’s hands touch each time. It doesn’t help when they get past the worst of the gridlock and pick up speed to a level where Bucky has to wrap his arms around Steve’s waist.

The shield’s strapped on the back of the bike in the black case Tony had made for him, inconspicuous enough to not draw any attention to them. Just two guys on a summer road trip up the coast. Nothing at all to see here.

Instead of getting on the interstate, Steve chooses the 50, and they drive past Annapolis, over Chesapeake Bay and through Kent Island. Then they get on the 301, which runs through the smaller towns, and Steve can’t help but hope that the drive lasts forever. The press of Bucky’s warm body against his, the wind in his face and the smell of the Atlantic breeze when they get closer to the coast. He’s so much more relaxed here, out in the sticks with fewer cameras and fewer cops.

Steve hasn’t let himself think about the _how_ of Bucky being there with him. The horror of the contraption Rumlow had woken him from. The metal chair, the wires hanging from the device in the ceiling. Metal tables and restraints. His brain won’t let him. Instead, he enjoys the soupy July heat and the closeness of Bucky’s body. He’s real, he’s here with Steve, they’re together, just as it always should be. On their way back to New York, only seventy years too late.

  
  
_Art by [maichan](https://maichan808.tumblr.com)_   


Eventually, they stop at a place called Middletown for lunch and Steve buys them drinks and hot dogs from a small diner at the side of the road. They eat outside the old-fashioned railway car on plastic benches. Bucky looks at the hot dog and drink for a long time, but after Steve prods it towards him for the fifth time, he does eventually eat it, chewing slowly and methodically like he’s not quite happy with it. Steve isn’t sure what to make of it, but he can always find foods that Bucky would like better when they get back to the Tower.

They’re just about to get back on the bike when Bucky suddenly stops and then darts behind a set of dumpsters to throw up. He’s almost silent as he does it, no retching or gulping breaths; the only sound is the liquid hitting concrete and then there’s an acrid smell of sick and stomach acid. For a moment, Steve just stands there, berating himself. Bucky hadn’t wanted the food, and he’d near-on forced those hot dogs on him.

Once Bucky is done, he straightens up – Steve can see the line of his back from where he’s standing – but he doesn’t come out from behind the dumpsters. He just stands there, stiff and still like a statue. Steve swears under his breath again at his own stupidity. He turns on his heel and goes to get a big bottle of water from the diner, then walks back to the dumpsters and hands it to Bucky, who’s still standing there, hunched where Steve had left him. He flinches as Steve comes around the corner, almost as if he’s expecting to be hit. Hesitantly, he takes the bottle from Steve’s outstretched hand and drinks, his sides heaving as he gulps down the liquid.

Steve doesn’t want to think about Bucky’s posture, the way he’s looking at Steve, unsure of what Steve would do. Like he doesn’t _know_ Steve at all.

“We should get back on the road,” Steve eventually says, voice hollow, and Bucky just nods, walking out from between the dumpsters and towards the bike like nothing at all has happened.

It's only two and a half hours to Manhattan from the diner and Steve decides to get on the Jersey turnpike just to get them both back as fast as possible. They don’t talk or stop until Steve’s pulling into the underground garage at the Tower, where he sees Natasha standing by the lifts, hands on her hips like an unimpressed schoolmarm.

“Jesus, Rogers, can you pick up your phone?” she chides him above the sound of the bike. “We’ve been trying to call you for –”

She doesn’t finish the sentence; instead, Steve sees her dive under cover by a set of boxes next to the lifts and pull out her sidearm. She’s pointing it squarely at Bucky sitting behind him. Bucky, who’s no longer on the back of the bike; he’s behind it, angling one of Tony’s stupidly flashy cars between himself and Natasha. He’s got a sleek-looking gun out too and Steve has no idea where he’s been keeping it among the civilian garb he’s wearing.

“Hey! Whoa!” is all Steve gets out, because Natasha is taking aim, yelling, “Get out of the way Steve, I’m not joking.”

She really doesn’t sound like she’s joking, and it’s not a choice for him, not really, as Steve twists his body in the seat and flips the shield off the back of the bike to cover Bucky, and for a moment, it feels like no time has passed at all. That they’re in some HYDRA bunker in France, because Bucky’s at his six and he’s taking aim just above the rim of the shield, and it just feels _so, so good_.

He can see Natasha’s eyes narrow, he can see her shifting her aim, but Steve doesn’t give her an opening. They’d gotten pretty good at this with the Commandos and Steve feels an odd flash of pride in his chest that Bucky still remembers it when he otherwise seems to know so little.

“Steve,” she intones. “Step away from the Winter Soldier. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

_‘But I will’_ remains unsaid, but heard by all of them. Steve can feel Bucky’s body pressing close into his back, the same heat he’d gotten so used to on the drive.

That’s what Rumlow had called him too, ‘the Winter Soldier,’ like it was some kind of call sign, or a code name. How would Natasha even know to call him that? There’s a moment when he thinks that maybe she’s in on it. She’s with SHIELD, after all, and that thought hardens his resolve. Maybe Bucky can sense it, because he murmurs, “Exfil at your four,” so low that even Steve can barely hear it. “Garage door’s still open.”

Steve doesn’t nod, doesn’t say anything, just presses his shoulders back, hoping that Bucky still knows what he means. That he’ll cover them. There’s enough cars and boxes and other crap in the area to give them plenty of cover for a smooth enough retreat.

“Steve, don’t do anything stupid,” Natasha says, and her tone is still the same, that steely monotone.

Steve’s body tenses, ready for that first dash, his eyes mapping the path as the elevator pings. None of them moves an inch as Tony strolls out through the sliding doors. Steve can feel Bucky tensing, but he doesn’t move, or maybe just presses a fraction of an inch closer, making sure he’s fully under the cover of the shield.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Tony nods at the Mexican stand-off happening among his fleet of luxury cars. “So, a funny thing. Did someone by chance bring a bomb into my house? Because Jarvis just happened to mention that there’s a bomb down here.”

It’s such an absurd thing to do that they all end up just staring at him, even if neither Bucky nor Natasha’s aim wavers. When no one says anything, Tony walks the few steps down from the lifts and squints at all of them, before zeroing in on Bucky. “Fancy metal arm you’ve got there, buddy.”

Steve feels Bucky shift minutely, assessing the new threat in the room, but he still keeps his gun pointed squarely at Natasha.

“Tony,” Natasha says, and now there’s a warning his her tone. “That’s the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”

“Come on, Red. You can’t really believe in that crap.” Tony waves his hand at Natasha dismissively. “That’s a bedtime story they tell to naughty black ops agents in spy school.”

Natasha bristles, still not moving from her cover position. “Three years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there.” She doesn’t take her eyes off Bucky, not even for a moment. “I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me.”

Steve feels no reaction in Bucky’s body behind him, just steady pressure as he breathes.

“Natasha, you’ve got it all wrong, this is _Bucky_,” Steve grits out from between his teeth. None of that can be true, can it? Bucky can’t possibly be that person.

“Hold up a sec, Spangles. Bucky? Like Bucky-Bear Bucky?” Tony queries, jarring Steve’s train of thought. Steve ignores him.

“Rumlow took me to the bank, the Ideal Federal,” he continues, looking at Natasha. “He’s HYDRA. They had him. They were keeping him in some kind of a device, they were keeping him frozen.”

“Wait, what? Did you just say Rumlow is HYDRA?” Tony stutters. “He’s a nasty piece of shit from what I’ve read, but _HYDRA_?!”

“_Yes_,” Steve insists. “They’re inside SHIELD. And they had Bucky.”

“Right. Okay.” Tony’s rubbing his eyes, seemingly totally uninterested in the guns being pointed around the room.

“And if HYDRA had him, how do we know he’s not here to kill us?” Natasha asks, her aim not wavering.

Steve is trying to keep his temper, he really is, but he needs her to understand.

“Because the first thing he did when he woke up was to punch Rumlow’s lights out,” he says. “Do you think he’d have done that if they were working together? Wouldn’t he just have punched _me_ instead? It’s not like he needed to follow me to know where I was going; everyone knows where we live.”

Natasha considers a moment, her expression looking just a fraction less sure.

“Natasha, just put the gun down,” Tony says. “You’re not gonna win this one, because that’s Cap’s platonic, or, if you read what the internet or a few select academic publications have to say, not-so-platonic life partner from the good ole’ days.”

Natasha gives Tony a look like she doesn’t believe anything coming out of his mouth, which doesn’t really deter Tony in any way, shape, or form.

“He took a swan dive out of a train in 1945, but clearly that didn’t stick.”

Steve’s first instinct is to get up and punch Tony square in the face, but Natasha is still pointing her gun and he can’t leave Bucky without cover, so he holds position.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Tony,” he growls instead.

He hates that Tony’s saying it out loud. Saying what Steve’s known from the second Bucky fell out of that tube and into his arms. He should have gone back. He should have looked. Should have wanted to bring a body home. Should have made the time.

_Should. Should. Should._

He can’t do any of that now. Can’t go back seventy fucking years. What he can do is hold position and cover Bucky. What he should have done all along. Be the shield for him.

“Okay, fine, no talking about the train. Sure. I get that. Sore subject,” Tony says, and pops an M&M into his mouth. Steve isn’t totally sure where he got the candy bag from. “But can we get back to the bomb in my house thing?”

“Sir,” Jarvis interrupts, “I have triangulated the device to the unidentified person standing behind Captain Rogers. It seems to be on his person.”

“Bucky is _not_ carrying a bomb!”

Steve saw him naked this morning when he got changed. He doesn’t have a bomb. It’s easier to think of that rather than of the mess of scars bisecting Bucky’s shoulder and upper back.

“Not carrying, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis corrects, as cool and calm as always. “It seems to be located just where the greater tubercle of his humerus should be on his left arm.”

“So that fancy metal arm is actually armed. Neat,” Tony says with a wink. “We’re gonna have to dis_arm_ that.”

Even Natasha rolls her eyes, she can’t seem to stop herself, and Tony gives her a winning smile. Steve feels Bucky shift and suddenly understands that he’s moving his left shoulder away from Steve. Steve mutters a “no” and shifts them both back behind the cover of the shield.

Tony doesn’t seem to notice any of this, because he’s still monologuing. “Luckily, you’ve come to the right establishment for a bit of biomechanical engineering, my friend. I happen to be something of an expert.”

“Tony!” Natasha hisses. “He’s _the Winter Soldier_!”

“Yeah, and he’s also Cap’s little love nugget, so we gotta disarm the arm.” Tony shrugs and flips another M&M into his mouth, chewing with his mouth open. “Jarv, run a facial recognition for Sergeant Barnes from Daddy’s files. I’m sure they’re still in there somewhere.”

“Of course, sir.”

Bucky tries to shift more into cover, but Steve knows it’s pointless. Jarvis is everywhere, can see everything.

“It’s a hundred percent match, sir,” Jarvis says, with that strange, even voice of his. “However, his body weight and shape have been augmented considerably.”

And doesn’t Steve know it. The hair, the body, the arm, it’s all different, but he _knows_ that Bucky is still there, under it all.

“Alright, Cap, let's get going. That bomb’s not gonna disarm itself.” Tony waves towards the elevator, while emptying the rest of the M&Ms into his mouth with the other.

“You ever going to get fed up of making that particular joke?” Natasha asks drily, slowly starting to lower her gun and rise from her cover position. Steve, on the other hand, is not quite ready to put down the shield and play nice. Not after everything he’d seen in D.C.

“How do I know you’re not HYDRA?” he asks, looking at Natasha from above the rim of the shield. “You knew him.”

“Are you asking me if I swapped KGB for HYDRA? Fuck you, Rogers,” she snaps. She seems genuinely angry, but Steve’s not sure if that’s something he can trust, not with her. “You think I’d have gone through those files, led you on this path to find him, get you to D.C., if I was on their side?”

She does have a point with that, and if Steve can’t trust the other Avengers, then they really have no one. He twists, looking up at Bucky, who’s coolly observing the situation. His gun is still pointed towards the elevator, but his body isn’t quite as tense, or at least Steve hopes so.

“What do you think, Buck?”

“Your call, sir,” he says, and it’s so cold, so detached, that Steve wants to scream. Both Tony and Natasha are now looking at them from the elevator bay with raised eyebrows.

“‘Sir’?” Tony intones. “Didn’t think you and Bucky-Bear had that kind of relationship, Cap.”

“We don’t,” Steve sighs, and maybe some of the sorrow bleeds into his voice, because the only thing Tony says in return is “oh.”

With that, Steve gets up from his crouch and Bucky, seemingly sensing the shift in the room, slides the gun into the back of his pants. Steve still keeps the shield securely between Bucky and Natasha when they get into the elevator. She’s put her gun away too, though Steve’s pretty sure she could have it out in about 0.4 seconds, but then again, looking at how Bucky’s constantly keeping her in his line of sight, he probably could too.

They stand there, the four of them in tense silence as Jarvis rushes them up to the R&D floors and into Tony’s private lab. Even with all the time Steve’s spent in the Tower, he hasn’t been here before.

“Jarvis has got a Faraday cage set up around this part of the lab, just in case there’s any comms devices in there with the bomb,” Tony explains, while leading them all towards a particular work area. Every available surface is covered in pieces of the Iron Man suit. He motions Bucky to sit on one of the tables after he unceremoniously swipes most of the crap off it on to the floor, and then starts rummaging around for tools.

Bucky looks at Steve for confirmation, and Steve tries to smile at him, nodding encouragingly, but there’s something wild and afraid in Bucky’s gaze which makes the smile feel forced and too much like a lie. Bucky doesn’t want to do this. He thinks that something bad is about to happen, Steve knows it as clearly as he knows his own thoughts, able to read those fleeting microexpressions on Bucky’s face like a book he’s read from cover to cover until the pages are thin and worn.

Before he can say something, reassurance, anything, Tony pipes up from where he’s sitting in a backless wheely chair. “Alright, Robocop, you might wanna lie down, because Jarvis is gonna have to freeze most of the left side of the nervous system so we don’t fry you with some serious pain signaling.”

“No –” Bucky says, and then hesitates. “No pain?”

“Uh, yeah,” Tony mutters, still arranging a set of tiny screwdrivers in front of him. “That’s generally the idea. Pain bad, anesthetic good.”

He reaches over the table and pulls out a long cord from an open hatch in the floor. At the end of it is a round disk and four thin metal, well, _feet_, is the only word Steve can think of. Spider feet with a little curl at the end.

Tony motions towards the table again and Bucky stiffly sits, swinging his legs over and then lying down. His entire body is so tense he’s nearly trembling, face pulled tight into a non-expression. Steve wants to go to him, to tell him everything will be okay and that no one will hurt him, but he doesn’t know if it would be welcome. If Bucky would want that from someone he insists on calling ‘sir.’

Without further fanfare, Tony presses the disk to the side of Bucky’s neck and the feet press into his skin, anchoring it in. Steve can’t tell if it hurts from looking at Bucky’s face: the tight non-expression stays the same, and his fists are still squeezed tight by his sides.

“I developed this for when I have to repair or do maintenance on the arc reactor,” Tony explains, tapping his chest as he starts to rummage among the tools he’s gathered. “It allows Jarvis to isolate certain nerve signaling from your brain and block off the pain receptors. It can feel a bit strange at first.”

The little disk lights up and Bucky tenses for a second, then his eyebrows rise up to his hairline and he pokes his shoulder, where Steve knows from that morning that the metal arm connects to tissue. It’d been red and irritated-looking, and Steve makes a mental note to try and find out if there’s anything that can be done to help.

“No pain,” Bucky says, with wonder in his voice, still poking his chest and left clavicle.

“Yeah, T-1000, no pain. Why don’t you lie back now so I can disarm the arm?”

There’s a little tooting noise from behind Tony and they all turn to look as a claw-like robot is swiveling over, holding a pillow in its pincers.

“Yeah, yeah, Dum-E, sure, I’ll give him the pillow,” Tony mutters, grabbing it and shoving it onto the table behind Bucky’s head.

Bucky looks at the robot, the pillow, and Tony, and then slowly lowers himself back down onto the table, his head now resting on the pillow. “It’s soft,” he says, again with that same sort of wonder, and Steve blinks up at the ceiling as his eyes begin to water. He swallows the feeling down. Bucky doesn’t need this from him. Not now, not ever.

It only takes Tony a few minutes to get the plates of the arm open and all the wires and circuit boards pulled out, with tiny screwdrivers and pliers and wrenches littered on the table next to Bucky’s shoulder. Tony’s muttering to himself while he marks the wires with tiny pieces of multicolored tape, but Steve can’t really make out what he’s saying from where he’s standing with Natasha near the table. He still has his shield out, just slightly angled between her and Bucky.

She’s been staying close by too, coiled and ready, but eventually, as the hour ticks by, she gets bored and seats herself in one of the many office chairs littered around the lab, kicking it back and forth with her foot while they both wait. Steve can’t make himself sit down, or even move an inch away from Bucky.

Bucky, who’s still lying still as a stone on the table, once in a while taking peeks at his arm, at the open plates, and sneaking a poke at his chest with his right hand as if he’s still testing the numbness. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, which Steve is grateful for.

Eventually, after what feels like decades in Steve’s mind, Tony starts to put the plates of the arm back into place, closing things up.

“Alright, champs. I’ve taken out one bomb, two trackers, a remote deactivation circuit, and what appears to be a subcutaneous cyanide pill strong enough to kill a rhinoceros.” He taps the final plate into place. “Give that a whirl, Bucky-Bear. You can thank me later!”

He reaches to disengage the flat disk from the side of Bucky’s neck. Steve can see Bucky shiver as it’s removed, the plates calibrating, and he flexes his hand.

“Oh, yeah,” Tony says, looking at him. “Sorry about that, it feels a bit weird when the nerves come back online.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, moving his arm back and forth. The plates shiver and move, fingers articulating. “It feels lighter,” he says, looking at Tony for confirmation.

“No shit, the detonator alone was like a pound. If it still feels off-balance in a day or two, let me know and I can look at adding weight back into it.”

Bucky nods seriously, rolling his shoulder as he gets off the table, looking attentively at Steve. “What now, sir?”

“Uh, I don’t –” is all Steve gets out before Jarvis does his electronic throat-clearing. “May I suggest heading to the residential floors? Dinner has been served, and sir, Ms. Potts is very insistent that you _all_ eat today.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go, I’ll go,” Tony grumbles good-naturedly, smiling at the mention of Pepper’s name.

They all head upstairs together, Bucky happy enough to follow along. Natasha seems to have relaxed somewhat as well; she’s got her phone out and her fingers are flying over the screen as she texts someone. Steve assumes it’s Barton, as they don’t seem to be able to go more than five minutes without being in each other’s business. It’s kind of cute.

As soon as they get to the penthouse, Steve finds himself relaxing. He hadn’t even realized the level of tension he’d been carrying for days now, and stepping out of the elevator feels a little bit like coming back to base. Back to safety.

Jarvis wasn’t lying, because an opulent spread of sandwiches, salads, several trays of steaming pasta dishes, baked potatoes with a variety of toppings, and a pile of small pies has been laid out in the kitchen for them. Steve feels his mouth watering. It’s been hours since he ate the hot dogs, and his stomach chooses this exact moment to remind him of that fact with a loud gurgle.

Bucky, on the other hand, is looking at the dinner spread with what Steve assumes to be apprehension, his shoulders tense and hands fisted at his sides.

“Maybe we could get some smoothies,” Steve suggests gently, not wanting a repeat of the hot dogs situation.

“Ensure,” Natasha says suddenly from the other side of the breakfast bar, where she’s sniffing what looks to be a spinach cannelloni.

“What?”

“Ensure, it’s a high-calorie drink. They use it in hospitals for people who have trouble with food.” There’s a strange inflection to her tone, a hardness, but somehow, Steve thinks it’s not directed either at him or Bucky.

“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds good, where do we get that?”

It turns out that they get it from Pepper. Well, not Pepper directly, but she arranges a courier to come by in only about half an hour with a box full of the stuff in mixed flavors.

Steve opens up a few of the bottles, letting Bucky smell the contents. He’s not really sure if they smell of anything, but after a cursory sniff, Bucky starts to slowly drink the chocolate-flavored one and then proceeds to gulp it down like a starving python.

“Wow,” Tony says from the kitchen. “Never seen anyone that passionate about calorie intake – okay, maybe you and Thor with that pizza,” he eventually amends.

Bucky drinks five more of the shakes while everyone else helps themselves to food and drinks from the fridge, and Natasha texts Pepper to order several more boxes of smoothies. Steve pushes another strawberry-flavored one towards Bucky, which gets drunk at a slightly slower pace. He isn’t sure if Bucky’s just starving or if his calorie intake need has increased with whatever HYDRA did to him. Whatever it was that allowed him to survive the fall.

He doesn’t want to think about that, so instead he reaches out and touches Natasha on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

She just shrugs, still on her phone with a forkful of cannelloni in the other hand. “He didn’t seem too keen on the solid food thing. It’s no biggie.”

Steve doesn’t push, just pats her on the shoulder again, which feels wholly inadequate. “Still, thank you.”

She just hums, her eyes narrowing as she looks at Bucky, who’s started to go through the boxes of shakes and is sorting them into flavor categories. Chocolate seems to be his favorite, as he places it at the front.

“We should look through the data dump again,” Natasha eventually says. “We might be able to find something about him now that we know where and when to look.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, his gut clenching with dread. There can be nothing good in those files.

Tony’s nodding from the other side of the table, a forkful of lasagna halfway up to his mouth. He picks up his phone with his other hand and seems to make a note or two in the shared folder structure they’ve been parsing the SHIELD files into.

The elevator pings and everyone turns to look as Clint steps into the room. He’s wearing a nondescript hoodie and jeans, and if Steve didn’t know it was him, he’d pay him no mind on the street, which is probably the goal. Bucky doesn’t move or say anything, just tracks as Clint walks up to the kitchen.

“You didn’t text we’ve got guests, Nat.” Clint plops down onto one of the bar stools and pulls a sandwich tray towards himself.

Natasha leans back in her chair and says, “A bit busy babysitting the Winter Soldier,” at the same time as Steve says, “Clint, this is Bucky.”

“The Winter Soldier? Are you shitting me?” Clint exclaims. “I thought that was a spook fairytale.”

“I told you about Tehran, Clint.”

“Well yeah, but an operative that’s been active for fifty years, come on, Nat, that’s not realistic!” Then he suddenly turns to Steve, as if he’s just registered what Steve had said. “Wait? The Winter Soldier’s real name is ‘Bucky’?”

While all of this is going on, Bucky is standing in the kitchen, with another smoothie bottle halfway to his lips.

“Uh –” he says.

“Yes,” Steve says with too much force. “His name is Bucky.”

Bucky’s looking at him like he doesn’t even recognize the word, but also doesn’t want to contradict anything Steve says, and that’s even worse.

“Alright, then,” Clint says, shoving almost an entire Reuben into his mouth, and the moment is broken.

“Ewww, Clint!” Natasha moans, hiding her eyes behind her forkful of pasta and spinach. “That’s disgusting!”

Clint just chews and smiles with half a sandwich out of his mouth, and Steve doesn’t even know how to express his gratitude for the distraction, weird though it is.

Eventually, they all migrate away from the kitchen. Tony heads back to the lab, even with Jarvis warning him that Ms. Potts will not be pleased. Natasha and Clint curl up on the couch and turn on a TV show that Steve has absolutely no interest in watching. He has no idea where Thor and Bruce are at the moment and in all honesty, he can’t make himself care, because Bucky is still standing in the kitchen by his orderly rows of sorted smoothie packets.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good, sir.”

Steve hates that Bucky keeps saying that, but he tries to not let it show. It’s late and the day’s been long and they can try to work on the whole ‘sir’ thing tomorrow.

“Come on, I’ll show you where I’m staying.”

Bucky follows him down the hall with no hesitation. He sees Natasha watch them go with narrowed eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. He takes Bucky to his room. It’s not as sterile as it was in the first week. There’s a water glass and a paperback on the nightstand. A dirty t-shirt on the floor that he’d forgotten about before he left for D.C.

“So, I’m here, we can arrange a room for you too, I think,” Steve says, pulling out his phone and starting to look for Pepper’s number. She’d be able to help, he’s sure of it.

“I’m going – somewhere else?” Bucky asks, and he doesn’t seem very happy about it, looking at the door with a frown.

“You don’t have to, you can stay here,” Steve finds himself offering way too quickly, relief beating in his chest. If it was up to him, Bucky wouldn’t leave his sight ever again.

“With you?” Bucky seems to want to verify, and Steve nods, swallowing down the tears which are threatening to make a reappearance. “Yeah. With me.”

“It’ll be more secure,” Bucky says with a firm nod. “For the mission.”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve agrees, unsure of what else to say. “For the mission.”

But it seems to settle Bucky, because it’s easy after that. Steve gives him one of the extra toothbrushes and a pair of pajamas which seems to fit Bucky pretty well. He doesn’t complain about wearing them, just rubs the flannel fabric between his fingers, like he’s feeling something like it for the first time.

They brush their teeth and use the toilet in the bathroom attached to Steve’s suite, standing next to each other over the double sinks before Steve crawls into bed. At least it’s king-size, so they should both have more than enough space. Steve hears the toilet flush and sees the light turn off in the bathroom as Bucky comes back into the room. He moves through the dark with ease, sliding under the covers on the opposite side of the bed.

For a while, Steve can only hear their steady breathing and the rush of blood in his own ears. Eventually, Bucky lets out a long breath and asks, “So we just sleep?”

“Yeah,” Steve huffs, feeling stupid at how nervous he is, at how much he wants to get this right.

“It’s – safe?”

There’s something in Bucky’s tone that makes the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end, a resignation perhaps, like he can’t fathom anything being good or safe or soft.

“Yeah, Buck. It’s safe,” Steve says, lacking anything better.

“You keep saying that,” Bucky mutters in the dark. Steve can make out the frown on his face where he lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.

“Saying what?”

“‘Buck.’”

“It’s your name.”

Steve feels stupid saying it; he’s been calling Bucky that the whole day.

“I don’t –” Bucky starts, bewildered, turning to his side to face Steve. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay.” Steve tries to calm him. “Do you want me to call you something else?” He doesn’t want that, but he’ll do it if it makes Bucky happy, if he has another name he’d prefer.

“No!” The denial is almost violent as Bucky lurches towards him, shifting towards the center of the bed. Steve can see the deep frown on his face clearly now, can almost feel the sharpness of his breath.

“Okay, Buck,” he says, which seems to be the right thing, because Bucky nods and Steve thinks he sees him smiling in the darkness as he shuffles back to his side. Just a tiny twist of his mouth, but it makes Steve’s heart thump in his chest like it’s still 1937 and his arrhythmia is playing up.


	6. Midnight Requisitions

**Midnight Requisitions**

(U.S. Army) To steal; to acquire supplies for one unit from another without their approval or knowledge, usually after business hours/dark.

Steve wakes up with his back pressed into Bucky’s, their spines aligned like magnets pulling together. It feels good, _secure_. Like they’re still in a pup-tent in occupied France and none of the events of the past few months ever happened. It all feels so distant, the yawning chasm of pain he’d felt when Bucky fell, the helplessness and the anger. Now all he can feel is Bucky breathing, a deep in-and-out motion as his lungs expand, pressing his back into Steve’s. He lies still for a while, counting the breaths.

Eventually, his bladder forces him out of bed and into the bathroom, and he hears Bucky moving around too while he’s brushing his teeth at the sink.

It’s oddly domestic as they change places at the sink and Bucky starts brushing his teeth while Steve looks for clothes for the both of them. Pepper and Natasha’s forced shopping spree suddenly comes in very useful, because he’s able to share his things with Bucky. They’re not a perfect fit, but they’ll do well enough for now.

Breakfast is a six-egg omelet for Steve and a protein shake for Bucky; they sit side by side on the kitchen counter as they eat and Steve can’t help but revel in the comfort of it all. Bucky is pretty much halfway through his first shake when Jarvis’s voice breaks through the slurping. “Captain Rogers, sir is requesting your presence on level 79.”

“Alright,” Steve says to no one in particular, shoveling the last bit of the omelet into his mouth. He hasn’t quite worked out where to look when speaking with Jarvis.

Bucky is still squeezing the first shake carton in his metal hand, looking covetously at the box, and Steve can’t help but smile. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ll head down to see what Tony wants. You just finish your breakfast.”

“All of it?” Bucky asks.

“As much as you want, just stop when you’re not hungry anymore,” Steve says, trying to manage the fine line of not giving an order and still making Bucky feel like he can eat as much as he wants to. Bucky just licks his lips, looks at the box, and lifts the carton back to his mouth. The slurping noises continue.

When Steve gets down to the workshop, Tony’s standing by a row of seven screens hovering in the air, his fingers flying over the keyboard as Steve enters. He looks over his shoulder, face tight.

“Oh, you’re here, good.”

Steve frowns too. No jokes, no stupid nicknames. Nothing of what he’s become so accustomed to hearing from Tony. He walks up to the screens and stops beside him.

“What’s up, Tony?”

“Well, with the new, international-assassin-shaped arrival, I wanted to find out what SHIELD, or, well, HYDRA, in this case, knows about him, so I spent the last fourteen hours hacking into every conceivable system they have. It’s actually pretty easy once you know what you’re looking for.”

Tony’s voice is still tight and hard; it’s the same tone Steve had heard on the helicarrier when they’d found the weapons, found pieces of HYDRA inside SHIELD. Steve shouldn’t have let that go, shouldn't have let the attack distract him from that. Not when there was proof of HYDRA still being around.

“Alright,” Steve says carefully and Tony laughs. There isn’t an ounce of humor in the sound. “Yeah. I pulled on that thread and all the horror just came tumbling out.”

“What did you –” and before Steve can finish, one of the screens changes and a video starts to play. It’s grainy and looks old. The equipment looks weird, bulkier than the stuff Steve had seen in the vault, but there’s no mistaking what the capsule-like device is.

There’s a man in a white coat speaking as two other men begin to push buttons and pull down levers. Steve recognizes the language, but he never did learn any Russian. The Howlies weren’t posted to the Eastern Front, after all, so there hadn’t been a need.

“Jarvis, translate,” Tony barks out, and Jarvis begins to speak over the Russian.

“The defrosting protocol requires finesse and a good understanding of the equipment. If the procedure is not followed correctly, the Asset may be rendered unusable.”

On the video, the equipment hisses and splutters, and Steve can hear the rushing of water and the beeping of machines as a hazy screen counts down to zero. Once the timer finishes, the container hisses one last time and then slides open.

Steve recognizes Bucky’s face even with the low quality of the film. The men drag him out of the tube and roughly place him on a table as the camera angle pivots to follow them. The men force Bucky’s head back and shove a tube into his mouth. Steve can see his throat bulging. The man is still speaking, and Jarvis is translating.

“Re-starting the heart is a fairly straightforward process. Intubate and begin electronic simulation of the heart. We have found 3 milligrams of adrenaline to be a suitable amount for the Asset.”

Steve hears the whine of electricity as they start to shock Bucky on the table. Once. Twice. His body contorts and his metal arm flops uselessly as he suddenly starts trying to fight the restraints and the tube in his throat.

“The arm should still be deactivated at this point in the processing. Once the optimal base rhythm has been achieved, you must move quickly to the next stage.”

Steve watches as they pull the tube out of Bucky’s mouth and he retches and gasps for air. He watches as they pull him down from the table like a piece of meat and drag him down a long dark corridor while the camera follows.

They shove him into some kind of tiled alcove where he stands, shivering. Steve hears the water a second before it hits Bucky’s back. His whole body flinches, the metal arm coming out to brace himself against the wall as the men hose him down. It only lasts a minute or so, but Steve’s fingers are squeezed so tightly his knuckles crack. On the video, the men drag Bucky out of the alcove and further down the corridor.

“The cryo unit and recalibration station should be placed in close proximity to each other in order to avoid any unnecessary transportation issues. The Asset must be recalibrated quickly after the defrosting protocol for optimal results.”

They step into a room and Steve instantly knows what the device is. He’d seen it in D.C., sleeker and more modern than the one in the video, but it’s still the same device. He wants to reach into the video, wants to pull Bucky out, wants to stop everything from unfolding, but he can’t. He’s too late. This happened years ago. He has to remind himself that Bucky is upstairs, drinking protein shakes in a variety of different flavors, as he watches the men in the video strap him down.

Jarvis is still translating, and the whine of electricity fills the room on the screen.

“We have refined the process to mitigate all unwanted neural activity which may have developed during the cryo-freeze process.”

Bucky screams in the background as the electricity crackles and pops. Eventually, it stops, and Steve thinks he can hear the painful wheezing of Bucky’s breath. After a moment, he looks up from the chair to the men around him.

“Я жду приказаний,” he says.

“Ready to comply,” Jarvis translates.

Finally, the screen goes black. They both stand there in the oppressive silence, not looking at each other. Steve can see Tony’s reflection on the black screen, the way his lips are pressed together and his brows drawn. Eventually, he does speak.

“So, yeah, that was the quick and efficient YouTube Winter Soldier processing tutorial.”

“Is everything a fucking joke to you?” Steve demands.

Tony looks at him then and smiles, and there’s no joy in it. “Only the really serious things.”

Steve covers his face with his hands and rubs his eyes, trying to abate the burning there, as Tony keeps talking.

“There’s a shit-ton of files there too. Some kind of operating procedures on feeding him and combat management. There’s crap on feeding tubes and medications, readings from the chair, and some neural mappings they did in the 70s. Which are just obscene, they seem to have just fried him willy nilly. There’s mission reports too, haven’t gone through those yet, this kinda seemed more pressing, so….”

“Stop,” Steve says, begs. “Tony, please, just stop.”

Tony does, snapping his lips closed, fingers still hovering over the keyboard.

Steve stands up and turns towards the elevator. Tony says something. Something about reaching out to various experts for medical advice, about a management plan, but Steve isn’t really listening anymore. His ears are ringing and everything feels distant as he walks towards the elevator, which Jarvis mercifully opens for him as if on cue.

“The gym,” he says. He can’t think, can’t let his brain play those images in his head over and over until he’s through the doors and across the floor of the gym and his fist is making contact with the reinforced bag Tony had set up for him.

It feels good, the impact, the pain. He doesn’t stop, can’t stop until sand is pouring from the bag and blood from his hands, all of it mixing on the cement floor.

“You know, you really should tie your hands,” a voice says behind him.

When he looks around, Clint is standing by the edge of the door, leaning against a wall. His face is unreadable the way it always is when Natasha isn’t around. Steve holds the now half-filled bag between his aching hands, stopping it from moving, but sand is still spilling out from the tears in the leather. He’s probably broken at least one of his metacarpals.

“What do you want?” Steve spits out, ruder than he really means to.

Clint doesn’t seem to notice or care, because his voice is steady and even. “I spoke to Tony. He told me about your friend.”

Steve’s fingers sink into the bag, pushing more and more sand out and tearing the holes even bigger. His hands ache with the strain, but he doesn’t say anything. What is there to say, after all? He hears Clint moving closer, knows that he’s letting Steve hear his steps. His voice is still as steady as ever as he speaks.

“You can’t change the things that’ve happened, not any more than I can change the things I did, but he’s here now and he needs you. More than you probably even know.”

Steve can’t help the sob that escapes his mouth, can’t help his knees from buckling under his own weight. He clings to the bag as he falls to his knees in the sand and blood. Steve feels the steady pressure of Clint’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing the bunched-up muscles there as he tries to rein in his sobs, swallow them down and down until nothing is left.

“I left him,” Steve manages to force out between the sobs tearing out of him. “I left him there.”

“What really matters is what you do now, how you treat him now. You can’t change the past, none of us can.”

Clint sounds so heartbreakingly kind as he says it, and Steve thinks back to that first night in the Tower, of him and Natasha and Clint sitting on the couch watching over the New York skyline. Of the way she had leaned into him, gentle and kind and accepting.

“Come on,” Clint says eventually, as the sobs die down and the room is only filled with the sound of Steve’s harsh breathing. “I’ll get you fixed up, and we’ll go up and see him.”

Clint picks up a pretty well-stocked first-aid kit from the wall where it’s hanging right next to a vivid burn mark. He pulls out a rinser bottle, antiseptic wipes, and bandages. Holding Steve’s hands with a sure grip, fingers calloused and hard from the strings of his bow, as he cleans the cuts without hesitation. There’s a part of Steve that enjoys the pain. The pressure and sting and just the beginnings of the itch of the bones knitting together.

* * *

When they get back to the penthouse, Bucky is sitting in the kitchen with Natasha and the counter is filled with bottles and cartons and strange-looking canisters. In Bucky’s hand, there’s some kind of big round container with a red domed lid.

“– and then you shake it,” Natasha is saying, mimicking a shaking motion with her hand.

Cautiously at first, Bucky starts to shake the container. There’s clearly something liquid inside it, because it sloshes around as he does so.

“Good,” Natasha encourages. “Now faster.”

And Bucky does, shaking the thing with so much vigor that Steve is afraid that the top is going to fly off. Once whatever is in the container is well mixed, Natasha shows him how to flip up a piece of the top in order to drink from it. Bucky takes a small sip and his eyebrows climb almost all the way to his hairline, and Natasha smirks, but it’s somehow soft and sweet on the edges.

“Nutella flavor,” she laughs, and then, with a horrible fake-Russian accent, she says, “Welcome to America, comrade!”

Bucky stares at her for a second and then he suddenly starts to laugh too. It’s rough and croaky like he doesn’t really know how to anymore, but it’s a real laugh, and Steve is ready to fall to his knees all over again in gratitude. Natasha is still smiling, the corners of her eyes crinkled. She suddenly looks impossibly young.

“It’s actually originally an Italian product, but Americans love it.”

“It’s good,” Bucky says and upturns the container over his mouth and proceeds to gulp down the whole thing in one go. Once he’s done, he offers Natasha the container and says hopefully, “Another?”

Natasha nods solemnly, pulling one of the canisters towards herself and starting to fill the container with brown powder and water from a jug near her elbow. Bucky shakes the thing again and drinks it, this time with only slightly less fervor.

When Bucky’s done drinking, Natasha finally turns to Steve and Clint. Both she and Bucky must have known they were at the door already, just standing and watching, but neither of them thought it important enough to interrupt the consumption of the item that Natasha called ‘Nutella.’

As if on cue, she says, “Hey there fellas, want a Nutella protein shake?”

“Sure,” Steve manages to croak, while Clint is nodding enthusiastically, clearly already familiar with this magical product.

Bucky reaches for the canister and makes another shake, offering the container to Steve once he’s done shaking it. Steve blames the tremble in his hand on the metacarpal fracture.

Bucky spends the rest of the day alternating between trying out all the different combinations of protein shakes and drinks that Stark’s money can buy and sitting on the couch and speaking softly with Natasha in Russian.

Clint wanders in and out of the penthouse, often coming in with different kinds of snack foods, which Steve can’t help but eat. He finally gets to try flaming hot Cheetos, which are strange and surprisingly addictive.

Steve veers between ludicrously happy that Bucky’s finally talking and eating and clearly feeling more at home and raging jealousy that it’s Natasha who’s bringing all that out in him. Instead of stewing in those thoughts, Steve heads to Pepper’s office to apologize for the mess in the gym, but she just waves him away with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Oh, don’t worry, Steve. Tony’s destroyed that floor more times than I can count.”

Instead of going straight back down, he ends up wandering around the private office floors and the small indoor garden that occupies a greenhouse-like space on the west side of the building.

He wants to give Bucky space, to let him get to know the other Avengers too, even if it bothers him deeply on some small, hateful level. Even if it reminds him of school and of how popular Bucky was, of how much Steve had resented it. He’d pushed back so hard that one winter, when they were seven or eight, he’d told Bucky that he didn’t want to be his friend anymore. That he wanted Bucky to go away and just be with his popular friends like he wanted to. He hadn’t listened to Bucky’s side of things, until Winnie had come over and spoken to Sarah.

Steve had expected a hiding for his behavior, but instead, she’d pulled him into her lap on the small, worn loveseat that occupied their living room. She’d held him and told him that Bucky really cared about him and that the kind of friendship they had came so rarely in life and that Steve should treasure it. Steve thinks he may have cried, may have told her that Bucky was so popular and that maybe Steve didn’t deserve his friendship, being sick and poor.

The next Monday, Bucky had come to school and had hesitantly shown Steve a beautiful cat’s eye marble he’d found on the street near Mrs. O’Malley’s house, and Steve had admired it and had told Bucky that they should go back because there might be more, and that had been that. Their friendship had been back to where it belonged.

Steve thinks that maybe this time, it may not be as easy as a few kind words and a found trinket.

When he gets back to the penthouse, Natasha is alone on the couch, chin resting on her knee and her face illuminated by her computer.

Steve tries to swallow the rising sense of panic. “Where is he?”

Natasha can obviously read it all on his face clear as day, because she snorts out, “Cut the panic, Rogers. He’s asleep in your room.”

Steve can’t help but walk over to their door and peek inside. Bucky’s half-under the covers, one leg and one arm poking out and a dark tuft of hair at the top of his head. His breathing is steady and even. Steve lets himself look, just for a minute, and drinks in the sight of him.

Eventually, he makes himself close the door and head back into the living area, where Natasha is still clicking on her computer.

“What’s with the one-eighty?” The question almost explodes out of him, surprising even him, and Natasha raises her eyebrow as if in a question. Steve just motions to all of her, as though that would explain anything.

“On Bucky! Yesterday, you wanted to blow his head off and now –” Steve makes another hand gesture towards the kitchen counter filled with shakes and shake paraphernalia “– now it’s all Nutella and secret Russian!”

“Jealous, Steve?” she smirks.

“What, no! I just –”

She seems to take pity on him, and her face mellows into a small, sad smile. “I read the files,” she says softly, like she’s trying to pull a punch that still lands true.

For a second, Steve feels winded, having thought that the files and the videos were something Tony was only sharing with him, not spreading Bucky’s private details around the whole team, and maybe she reads that on his face.

“How? Did Tony show you?”

“We’re a bunch of spies, Steve,” she huffs like he’s an idiot. “Nothing gets on Stark’s servers without me or Clint finding it and looking at it. Plus,” she adds, “He’s the Winter Soldier, so I had to be sure.”

She grabs her computer from the coffee table and flips it open. The video she has paused on the screen is different to what Tony had shown him. On the screen, Bucky seems to be in some kind of medical facility, strapped down to a padded chair with a tube going into his nose.

“I don’t know how much Fury told you, or if he really told you anything about me.”

Steve laughs, bitter. Thinking of Peggy’s false file, of the HYDRA weapons, of compartmentalization. Secrets on top of secrets.

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

Natasha nods.

“I don’t really remember a lot of it, just pieces that don’t fit together, like looking at the world through a haze,” she says. “But this –” she points at the frozen image. “This feels familiar. For me.”

Her finger lingers on the screen, just over Bucky’s bare chest, the scarring that’s visible near the socket of his arm even with the low light and poor quality of the film.

“For you?” Steve says carefully, feeling like he’s about to step on a landmine.

She laughs, dry and cynical. “Before I worked for SHIELD, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set and I didn’t care who I used it for, or on.” Her expression is almost totally blank. “You know, I told Loki that too. He was very taken by it all, as men like him often are.”

She shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge the thought, her face pinched.

“But obviously that’s not the whole truth of it. Because before SHIELD, before being a gun for hire, before all of it, there was this.” She pokes at the screen. “This specific place that I don’t remember, but it seems so horribly familiar. Like a home left behind by a small child. The memories twisted by time.”

Steve doesn’t really know what to say, so he reaches out to her and touches her shoulder softly, and she doesn’t shrug it off, just presses minutely into the touch.

“I’m sorry,” he eventually says, and Natasha nods.

“If Clint hadn’t seen something in me, something worth keeping, my story would have had a really different ending.”

She closes the computer with a snap and looks up at him from where she’s curled up on the couch. “He’s really lucky to have you, to have someone believe in the goodness of him even if no one else can see it, even if everyone else thinks it’s all been burned away and there’s nothing left.”

Steve nods, wondering how much she’s talking about Bucky and how much about herself.

“Thank you for what you did for him today. It means a lot.”

She pats the hand that’s still on her shoulder, effectively indicating that the conversation is over. Steve gives her one final squeeze and goes to see if Bucky’s awake and ready for dinner. There should be more of that Nutella stuff, and maybe he can show Steve how to make some.

* * *

Bucky’s first encounter with Bruce and Thor takes place the next morning, in the kitchen. Bucky’d finished their entire supply of Nutella protein powder the previous evening and had wanted more for breakfast, so they’d had to go to replenish their stocks from the storage cupboard by the door. As they get back to the kitchen, Bruce waves hello to them from the corner where he’s engrossed in a tablet, but he doesn’t get up, even though he looks at them curiously.

Steve’s just managed to open the new boxes when the door opens and Thor strides in, stark naked and coming to a stop right in front of Bucky.

Steve hears Bruce snort from the corner.

“Who are you?” Thor asks him, sounding rather brusque, quite unlike his usual self.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, looking unnerved. Steve doesn’t blame him; it’s difficult to know where to look.

“I have not seen you before,” Thor continues. “Who are you?”

“I…I don’t,” Bucky starts, but then stops again. “I mean, my name’s….”

“This is Bucky,” Steve says, coming over to stand in front of him and shield him from Thor’s gaze. He tries very hard to look at Thor’s face, and _only_ his face.

“_This_ is Bucky?” Thor says, sounding surprised. Then his frown clears. “Ah, yes. I heard he was in the Tower. A pleasure to meet you,” he says, holding out a hand.

Bucky takes the hand and shakes it, and Thor exclaims over his arm.

“What a weapon!” he says, exuberantly. “I am sure this must be very powerful. Lethal, in the right circumstances, so I have heard.”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing; Thor is sometimes a little thoughtless, but he’s usually nowhere near this crass.

“That’s enough, Thor,” he says, more forcefully than he intends to, and when Thor bristles, Steve squares his shoulders, ready for a punch he knows he’ll struggle to withstand. “Leave Bucky alone. He’s not…he isn’t….”

He doesn’t know how to continue. Thor looks taken aback, an unreadable expression sliding across his face, perhaps as if he’s doing some very quick thinking.

“My apologies,” he says. “I meant no offense. I was merely…surprised.”

“Well, he lives here now, and you’d better get used to it,” Steve says fiercely, again readying himself to take a blow from Thor if need be. “He’s _safe_ here, he needs somewhere _safe_, he needs….”

“Yes, I can see that, friend Rogers,” Thor says, his voice softer. “He has suffered greatly and has been a tool for those with wickeder aims than himself. I can sense it.”

Again, this is so unlike anything that Thor has ever said before that it gives Steve pause.

“Um, thank you,” he says lamely after a moment, though he’s not really sure what he’s thanking him for. Thor gives an irritated jerk of his head.

“You should look to your friend,” he says, and he strides off, brow furrowed.

Steve finds the whole encounter so surreal that it takes him a moment to look at Bucky, but when he does, he sees that he’s frozen to the spot.

“Bucky?” Steve says. “It’s okay, it’s just Thor. He’s….” He wonders how to describe Thor in a way that will make him seem less weird. “He’s from space,” he adds, hoping that will do.

Bucky doesn’t respond, and Steve feels like he needs to keep defending Thor.

“I mean, Asgard, so it’s kind of space. He’s real nice when you get used to him though, he just doesn’t really get everything about living here yet. Kind of like us, right?”

When Steve looks over at Bucky, he sees that he’s staring into the middle distance, his eyes unfocused.

“You okay?” Steve says. Bucky’s expression is reminding him of how he’d looked after Steve had first found him, and it’s unnerving.

“My name,” Bucky says in a whisper. “He asked my name.”

“Bucky, are you okay?” Steve asks, his voice sounding loud to his own ears, because he can see that Bucky is _not_ okay, but he doesn’t know what else to say or do.

Bucky still doesn’t answer. He’s breathing fast, and close up, Steve can see sweat beading on his forehead. When Steve says his name again, he gives a little whimper, folding in on himself with an expression of such distress that it hurts Steve’s heart.

“I’m not…I shouldn’t…,” Bucky mutters, “Lethal, he said. I shouldn’t be here.”

“_Bucky_,” Steve says, reaching for him instinctively, wanting to comfort, to reassure, but Bucky recoils with a yell and Steve leaps back as though stung. He’s really worried now, and he knows he’s got to keep it together for Bucky’s sake, but he can feel his own breathing speeding up, his own palms starting to sweat.

Suddenly, Bruce appears at his side. Steve hadn’t even noticed he’d crossed the room.

“Give him some space, Steve,” he says, his voice quiet, but authoritative, and Steve does, taking a couple of steps back. “It looks like he’s having a panic attack. Probably due to our Asgardian friend there.”

“What? What can we do? How can we help?”

“_You_ can help by not panicking yourself,” Bruce says, sounding amused. “I think _I_ can do something more practical. Hey, Bucky,” he says. “You’re okay. Do you need to go somewhere else?”

Bucky looks at him, wide-eyed, and shakes his head.

“It’s okay,” Bruce repeats soothingly. “You’re completely safe. Steve and I are here with you. Just try to breathe.”

Bucky still says nothing. Steve hates feeling this powerless, hates leaving something like this to Bruce, but he knows that anything he tries will be no help.

“Do you want to go and stand over there, by the window? Get some fresh air?” Bruce asks. “Only if you want to, we won’t make you do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Bucky sort of gestures towards the window, not a nod, exactly, but definitely a positive gesture, so Steve and Bruce walk over there with him, slowly, one at each shoulder, though not touching. The window opens a crack as they get there, and Steve sends up a silent thanks to Jarvis as the fresh air rushes in.

“You’re going to feel better soon,” Bruce says. “Do you want to try some breathing with me? It’ll help you to feel better.”

Bucky still doesn’t speak, but he manages a nod.

“Okay, that’s great,” Bruce says, smiling encouragingly. “Keep your eyes on me, breathe in when I breathe in, breathe out when I breathe out, yeah?”

He starts taking slow, measured breaths, and Steve finds himself following along, trying to keep himself calm as much as Bucky. It does help, grounding him and stopping the sound of his own heart thundering in his ears. He can see that Bucky’s doing his best to follow Bruce, and gradually, his shallow breaths become less frantic, more regular.

“That’s it,” Bruce says after a few moments, “Well done. Are you feeling any better?”

Bucky says, “Yes,” in a shaky voice. He does look better; there’s more color in his cheeks.

“Great, that’s great.”

“Do you want to sit down?” Steve asks, hoping that he might be able to do something at last. Bucky shakes his head.

“Back to our room?” he says in a small voice, and Steve feels a warm glow when he hears him call it _ours_, despite the circumstances.

“Of course,” he says. “C’mon.”

In the hallway, he ponders. Out of the two of them, he’d expected Bruce to be more of a problem for Bucky than Thor, but maybe out of everything else that’s happened, that should only be a minor surprise. Thor had seemed so _normal_ initially, within the parameters of ‘alien space prince,’ anyway. Is he losing his mind being stuck on Earth? Or do all Asgardians walk around naked like it’s nothing?

It’s not something Steve will be introducing in his own space, put it that way.

* * *

“You know, you _can_ tell him he’s allowed to shower,” Natasha tells him sharply one afternoon, leaning towards Steve in the kitchen while Bucky’s on the other side of the floor, looking out at the view of Manhattan.

“What?”

“Steve,” she huffs in annoyance, “He hasn’t showered since he got here. I can kinda smell it now.”

“Oh.”

Steve has noticed it a little bit, but to be fair to him, they’d spent so much time on the Front where you didn’t see even a bucket of water for weeks and they’d all smelled and you got used to it. So with this Bucky, who changes his clothes every day and brushes his teeth, he hadn’t really thought anything of it, but the next thing Natasha says makes him stop dead.

“And maybe he needs you to tell him that he’s allowed, okay?”

There’s that tone in her voice again, the same tone she’d had when they’d talked about the videos, about Bucky’s files.

“What –, what should I say?”

“I don’t know, Steve,” she sighs. “I don’t think there _is_ a right thing to say.”

She turns to look at Bucky standing by the big windows, looking down at midtown. He’s wearing Steve’s jeans and a Stark Industries hoodie he’s found somewhere, probably from Tony, who seems to want everyone to wear his things.

Now that Steve’s paying attention, Bucky’s hair does look greasy and unkempt. He’d always been so vain before the war. Careful with his clothes and always doing his hair with cream, making sure nothing was out of place. The girls in the neighborhood used to fawn over him and Bucky’d lapped it up.

Steve wonders if it bothers him now, if he even thinks about it at all.

“I’ll try,” he says to Natasha, who just nods, pensive, before turning back to her computer.

And Steve does try that evening as they head to their bedroom after dinner.

“You know, there’s a real nice shower in the bathroom.”

He’s aiming for a friendly suggestion, but Bucky flinches, and Steve suddenly thinks back to the video, to Bucky braced against the wall and the men hosing him down.

“Or a bath,” he offers. “You could have a bath.”

“You’ll be there?” Bucky asks, standing at the edge of the door to the room, but not really going inside yet.

“Uh, sure,” Steve stupidly agrees. “I can be there.”

And that’s how he ends up in the opulent bathroom, fiddling with the taps of the free-standing bath that he’s never really bothered to use. It’s huge, probably big enough for the two of them at the same time, which is a thought Steve tries to banish as soon as it enters his head. There’s all sorts of bottles in the cubby hole next to the tub, and Steve sniffs a few and dumps some of the better-smelling ones in, watching as the water starts to foam. There’s also a fancy-looking sponge, so he takes that out too.

When he turns around, Bucky’s standing there at parade rest, totally naked. It feels very different somehow to seeing Thor naked earlier, and it really doesn’t help that Steve is half-kneeling by the tub and thus has his face at dick level. Which in turn really isn’t helping the ‘bath-big-enough-for-two-thought’ situation.

“Okay,” Steve says, and it comes out as a more of a cough. “You can get in.”

Bucky approaches the tub like it’s a live ordnance, stepping in gingerly like he’s expecting something terrible to happen. When his foot slides into the hot water, his face shows a complicated set of expressions that Steve can’t really read and then he scrambles into the bath with such speed that a significant portion of the water sloshes over the side of the tub.

Luckily, there’s a drain in the open-air shower area, and Steve just turns on the tap to refill the tub. For a while, he lets Bucky sit in the warm water. The foam fortunately covers pretty much everything and he seems happy enough to sit there and lap the water with his hands. Steve does worry about the metal arm, but he assumes that Tony would have said something if it wasn’t suitable for water.

As the bubbles start to deflate and it becomes harder and harder to keep his eyes on the patterns of the wall tiles, Steve reaches for the shampoo.

“Can you get your hair wet?” he asks softly, trying desperately not to make it sound like an order.

Bucky looks at him for a second, like he wants to ask something, but then seems to decide against it. Slowly and carefully, he lowers himself back down, very clearly not wanting to put his face in the water, and Steve files that detail away for a later date. When Bucky rises, his hair is slicked back and soaking wet. Steve shuffles around the tub on his knees so that he’s behind Bucky and pours a healthy amount of shampoo into his cupped palm.

He feels a bit silly as he splats the shampoo onto Bucky’s scalp and starts to spread it around. He tries to be gentle, but Bucky leans into each touch so eagerly that Steve loses any hesitance quickly enough, pressing his fingertips into Bucky’s scalp and massaging the shampoo into a lather. Slowly, as he works, Bucky’s head starts to droop further and further back until his skull is mostly resting in Steve’s hands. His eyes are closed and his lips are parted, face slack with pleasure.

  
  
_Art by [maichan](https://maichan808.tumblr.com)_   


Steve can’t help but smile, pleased that he’s doing something right, that he’s making Bucky feel good doing something he was afraid of, so he doubles his efforts. Digging his fingers into the base of Bucky’s skull, spreading them over the crown of his head and keeping a firm hold of the back of it so that Bucky can just rest on him. As Steve works, Bucky starts making these little noises that Steve can’t help but notice. Little sighs and grunts when Steve digs his fingers into the tendons of his neck.

Eventually, he has to stop. He thinks most of the shampoo is gone by now, but he should still rinse, so he leans a bit closer and says, “Lean back and rinse your hair, alright?”

Bucky makes a grumpy, sleepy noise, but easily lets Steve tilts his head back into the water, watching as Bucky’s hair spreads around his head like a dark halo. He’s careful to not let any of Bucky’s face get into the water either.

Without much thought about what it means, Steve grabs the sponge and the fancy bar of soap and wets them both in the water. It’s not as hot as it was to start with, so Steve opens the tap again to adjust the temperature with more hot water. Once everything’s nice and toasty, Steve lathers up the sponge and tries to hand it to Bucky, who just stares at it for a moment and then leans over his bent knees so that Steve can wash his back.

Bucky doesn’t seem wary or embarrassed about the scars or the joint of the metal arm, so Steve tries to treat it the same way he’d treat any part of Bucky. As he slides the sponge over the long line of Bucky’s spine, Bucky sighs and just leans into Steve, his eyes closed and his wet hair soaking through the fabric of Steve’s t-shirt, and Steve can’t make himself care one iota about the wet clothes. He just keeps running the sponge over the slope of Bucky’s back. Nice and slow; back and forth.

Bucky’s right hand sneaks out of the tub, wet fingers suddenly sliding over Steve’s wrist and up his forearm. Steve stills at the touch, wondering if Bucky needs something, but he just stays where he is, leaning into Steve’s chest. Encouraged by those additional points of contact, Steve allows himself to lean in and press his face into Bucky’s clean, wet hair, the sponge moving over Bucky’s shoulders. The fingers tighten over his arm, keeping him right there. Right where Bucky wants him, and if a few tears escape while they sit there together in the quiet of the bathroom, well, no one’s going to notice. They just merge into the wet of Bucky’s hair, disappearing from view altogether.


	7. Alpha Roster

**Alpha Roster**

(U.S. Army) An alphabetical list (by last name) of all personnel within a unit.

The sun’s barely risen over the Manhattan high-rises and Steve’s leaning on the counter in the kitchen and eating straight out of an industrial-sized jar of peanut butter.

Bucky ambles into the living room still in his sleep pants and wearing a familiar Stark Industries hoodie. Steve has no idea where he keeps getting the Stark-branded clothing from. It’s just started appearing in the past week they’ve lived in the Tower. He nods a greeting and digs his spoon deeper. It’s easier to just eat it than to try to find something else this early in the morning. It fills the calorie deficit well enough, and he also doesn’t want to take any of Bucky’s shakes. They’re his, and Steve wants him to have as much as possible.

Suddenly, Bucky stops on the other side of the kitchen island and sniffs the air. His eyes zero in on the jar Steve’s holding and he rushes forward and slaps it out of his hand with considerable force. It goes clattering across the kitchen floor, rolling under the dining table.

“Bucky!” Steve shouts, forgetting to be careful. “What the hell!?”

“You can’t eat that!” Bucky fumes in return, his eyes narrowed. “You’ll get sick. Can’t breathe.”

He motions to his own throat, and he’s right. Steve _did_ use to get sick after eating peanuts. He‘d been allergic to them, before the serum. It’d gotten pretty bad a couple of times at Coney Island. He remembers the smells of the brine from the sea and fried foods on the pier. He remembers leaning against one of the stands while Bucky coaxed him to breathe. He can’t remember if it had been peanuts or asthma that time. He’d already learned to be careful then, but you never knew with the kettle corn.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says. “I used to get really sick, but not anymore, okay?”

Bucky just gives him a disbelieving look and then peers at the jar of peanut butter under the table like it’s going to get up and start shooting.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve coaxes. “I already ate almost half of it.”

He crouches down and retrieves the fallen jar, holding it out in a peace offering once he gets up from the floor. “Would you like to try it?”

Bucky’s still staring at the jar like it might explode, but he cautiously extends a finger, dips it into the peanut butter, and then sticks it into his mouth. His face makes several complex expressions, like the flavor is somehow both familiar and alien at the same time.

“It’s okay,” he eventually admits, and it makes Steve laugh.

“Alright, I think we might ask Pepper to get some Nutella. Apparently that comes in butter form as well and might be a bit more your speed, buddy.”

Bucky nods eagerly at the mention of Nutella.

The rest of the day goes without incident, but Steve can’t help but smile every once in a while, thinking back on it. Bucky remembered it, remembered _him_. Something so insignificant as his peanut allergy. It makes him want to grab Bucky and hug him all over, but he resists the urge. Bucky’s probably not quite ready for that level of affection just yet.

* * *

The next morning, they make their way to the communal area for coffee. It’s becoming a bit of a habit to seek out the other Avengers in the mornings, and Steve is secretly really happy to see Bucky making an effort to spend time with them all too, after his shaky start.

Bruce is there again making tea, and when he sees Bucky, he smiles.

“Hey, Bucky! Good to see you.”

“Hi,” Bucky says shyly.

“I was hoping I’d see you today. I found something I thought could be helpful for you, if you’ll let me show you?”

Intrigued, Steve and Bucky both draw closer.

“It’s not that tea, is it?” Tony calls from the couch. “Because that tea smells _bad_, Bruce.”

“Thank you, Tony, I definitely wanted your opinion,” Bruce calls back, and Tony shoots him finger guns.

“It’s not the tea,” he says, ignoring Tony and pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“They have state-of-the-art Stark phones, though I don’t know whether Buckles has ever used his,” Tony calls again, uninvited.

“_Thank you_, Tony, for another opinion I definitely asked for,” Bruce says under his breath, though it sounds more affectionate than truly annoyed. He turns to Bucky. “Well, do you?”

Bucky rummages in his pocket, then sighs.

“I think I left it in our room.”

And there’s that _our_ again. Steve glows.

“Okay, well, that doesn’t matter. I can show you on mine, then you can get it if you want to.” Bruce is scrolling through the screen until he finds what he’s looking for. “Here. It’s an app to help you meditate. I find it really useful when I’m feeling stressed, you can just do a few minutes and it really helps calm me down. Do you think that could be useful for you?”

“Are you telling me that we could just get some Hulk-sized headphones, put this on your phone, and we’d have no more big green problem?” Clint asks, and Steve jumps, because _when did he come in?_

Bruce rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Yes, Clint, obviously I’ve had the solution to the Hulk in my pocket the whole time, I just prefer massive property damage and the inability to form close interpersonal relationships.”

Natasha, who’s also appeared out of nowhere, whacks Clint in the back of the head. Bruce just turns back to Bucky like none of this is happening.

“No, not really. It won’t help if you’re in a massive rage spiral, but it _can_ help with the smaller stuff. Maybe try it out, see if it works for you? _And maybe anyone else in this room who has issues managing stress_?” he says, slightly louder, and really, that could apply to any of them.

“Thanks,” Bucky says.

Steve, taking note of the name of the app, can’t help but smile to see Bruce trying to help out like this. He’s just so _good_ at tricky conversations. Maybe because he’s had so many of them himself.

Unlike Clint and Natasha, Thor’s entrance is impossible to miss, though Steve is relieved to see that he’s at least wearing some clothes today.

“Good morning!” he beams, looking around and taking in the crowd. He spots Bucky and waves, saying “Ah, you must be Bucky! I am pleased to make your acquaintance!”, before filling a bucket-sized mug with coffee and shuffling out again.

“Didn’t you two meet before?” Bruce asks Bucky, who’s looking puzzled.

“Yeah…,” he says. “Every time I see that guy, he gets weirder.”

“Look, at least his junk’s not flopping around today,” Clint says. “Small mercies, man.”

“Yeah, I’m still recovering from the near-heart attack I had at the sight of him yesterday,” Tony says, rubbing his chest, and Clint nods fervently.

They spend the rest of the afternoon experimenting with the app. It works best when they both do the meditations together, though something seems to be bothering Bucky. Steve guesses it’ll just take time; at least they have the option to work on it.

* * *

That night, they both lie in bed awake for a long time, facing each other in the dark. The silence stretches between them for what feels like hours until Bucky suddenly shifts closer.

“I know you,” he says, with a cautious sort of wonder.

“Yeah, Buck. You know me.”

Steve can’t help the quaver in his voice, his heart trying to climb out through his mouth. Bucky starts frowning, like he does when he’s trying to work something out. “I mean, did I know you before, before –?” He looks for the words that don’t seem to be coming.

“Yeah, Buck. You knew me from before. We met on the side yard of Saint Isolde’s Catholic School for Boys. You were seven, I was six.”

Bucky’s nodding along. “I was a child,” he says, and Steve nods too.

“I wasn’t always like this.” He motions to his left arm, the gleaming metal that Steve sometimes forgets is not flesh and blood. Steve reaches out to hold it, to entwine their fingers, metal and flesh, together.

“You were always _you_, Bucky. You were –, you _are_ my friend.”

That seems to make Bucky happy, because Steve can see him smile in the dark. Neither one of them lets go and Steve thinks they might fall asleep still holding hands.

Steve wakes up feeling groggy, his mouth full of cotton. The room is still pitch dark, and as he cranes his head to look at the clock on the bedside table, he sees that it reads 02:14. It takes him a moment to orient himself and identify what’s woken him.

It’s Bucky. He’s shifting and moving on his side of the bed. Slowly, Steve’s eyes adjust to the darkness and he can just make out that Bucky’s kicked most of the covers off. One of his legs is moving restlessly, foot digging into the mattress as he presses the heel of his right hand over his crotch.

His incredibly, obviously aroused crotch.

For a second, Steve freezes. He doesn’t know how to react. Does he pretend to be asleep? Does he get up and go to the bathroom and stay there until Bucky’s finished? Is Bucky even awake? What is he supposed to do? His body, on the other hand, has a very clear idea of what to do, because he starts to get hard, just a response to seeing Bucky like this. Laid out and touching himself.

Steve’s still running a serious internal debate on the merits of escaping to the bathroom when Bucky makes a guttural noise of distress.

With his sense of propriety all but forgotten, Steve leans over to his side of the bed. “Buck, you okay?”

“I don’t, Steve –” he groans, making that awful noise again. “I can’t remember.”

It’s instinctive to move even closer, to touch Bucky’s side, his shoulder, to offer comfort. “Okay, okay. You’re alright,” Steve says mindlessly, feeling the hot skin under the damp cotton of Bucky’s shirt.

“Just ease up, slow down,” he murmurs. “Easy does it.“

And Bucky does: his hand relaxes until he’s just softly rubbing his dick over the cotton of his sleep pants. His clearly massive dick, which is very hard. Steve swallows and looks up at the ceiling. Begging for someone, _anyone_, to let him find the right way through this with his friend, who’s shifting closer to him, pressing his side to Steve’s chest.

“What do I –, how do I –?” Bucky pants against Steve’s cheek where their faces are now pressed together, stubble rough on his skin.

Steve can’t help but breathe him in. Sweat and sour breath and the underlying scent of his own shampoo. It’s heady, tempting, and his hand clenches where it’s still resting on Bucky’s side. Bucky’s hand is still working over his cock, fingers splayed wide and inefficient, but his hips still stuttering up into the contact.

“Get yourself out,” Steve says, voice rough and more commanding than he intends, but Bucky moans and does it. His hand slides under the waistband of his pants and pushes the fabric down while he pulls his dick out. It’s thick and hard, the wet tip just peeking from the folds of his foreskin.

“Okay,” Steve tries, his mouth suddenly feeling like the Sahara. “Wrap your hand around, not too hard. The serum makes you kind of sensitive.”

Steve wouldn’t tell that little detail to _anyone_. Anyone but Bucky, whose hold is clumsy, like he’s forgotten how to handle himself, like the motor skills of this very basic act have just abandoned him.

He slides his hand torturously slowly from root to tip, his head tilting back into Steve’s shoulder. “Will you –” Bucky breathes. “Will you…with me?”

“Uh,” Steve stutters. He’s still _so_ hard, aching, just from this, just from watching and the slight contact of their bodies. “Do you –, do you want me to?”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs against his cheek, pressing closer, lips whisper-close to Steve’s skin, just so that Steve could close his eyes and imagine it as a kiss. But he doesn’t close his eyes; instead, he watches Bucky sliding his fist up his cock all over again, until just the head peeks out from between his fingers.

“Okay, sure,” he finds himself agreeing, shoving his hand down into his boxers and squeezing his own painfully hard cock. It feels so good. His hand on himself, Bucky pressed tight into his side.

It takes a bit of maneuvering to find the perfect position, both of them lying side by side, shoulders and hips touching, elbows bumping into each other as they jerk off. The slick rhythmic sounds of both of them filling the room, the hard, needy breaths and sweet low moans neither of them can quite contain.

“Am I doing good?” Bucky pants, and he sounds so desperately close, his eyes closed and head thrown back, and Steve sneaks a glance at him. “Yeah, Buck,” he nearly moans at the sight. “So good. You’re so good.”

That’s all it takes. Steve feels and sees him go tense beside him, thighs and hips pumping as he comes all over his fist, over his belly and the edge of his ridden-up t-shirt. Steve can’t help but look, watching how Bucky pumps himself through the last of the tremors, how he milks the head, rubs his thumb over the slit like his body’s just now remembered how to do that particular motion all over again. Like he’s so caught up, so surprised by the pleasure of it.

That’s all it takes for Steve too, that sound and sight of pleasure from Bucky, and he’s coming. Into his own cupped hand, fucking into the tight grip of his own fist, biting his lips and thinking of nothing but Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_.

It really should be awkward after, but it isn’t.

Steve hobbles to the bathroom with one hand on his dick and the other trying to contain all the jizz. He washes up perfunctorily and grabs a towel for Bucky, wetting it under the tap before he returns to the bedroom.

Bucky’s already half-asleep, but he cleans himself up with minimal fuss and curls into Steve’s side, pressed close. It feels natural to drape his arm over Bucky’s waist, to hold him close as they both fall asleep, to feel him all lax and soft in Steve’s arms. Right where he belongs.

* * *

It’s like the dam’s broken after that night. Neither of them bothers to even pretend to stay on their own side of the bed anymore. Bucky snuggles close by, his head on Steve’s chest or leg thrown over Steve’s hip or thigh, always in contact. And Steve has his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, over his side or belly, cheek pressed to his hair.

It feels good, to be able to hold him, to make sure he stays right there, right where Steve can always reach him, touch him, make sure he’s okay. He thinks it helps Bucky’s nightmares too. He seems to wake up less during the night and when he does, he only presses closer to Steve, wordlessly asking for touch before falling back asleep.

Sometimes, in the bright light of the morning, Steve wonders what they’re doing, whether he should stop, should put a name on it, classify it somehow. He even tries once, three nights after the first time, when they’re getting dressed.

“Are you okay with this, Buck?”

“Hmm?” Bucky makes a noncommittal noise from the walk-in closet. “With what?”

“Sleeping here,” Steve says, and then adds, “With me.”

Bucky pokes his head out from behind the closet door and looks at Steve strangely.

“Yeah. Where else would I sleep?”

“I mean –” Steve fumbles. “You could have your own room.”

“We always slept in the same place.”

That’s not inaccurate. The cold water walk-up they’d rented together had only had the one bedroom and they’d shoved two single beds into it with barely a foot of space between them. In the war, they’d been in tents and barracks and whatever accommodation the SSR had been able to finagle in blitz-torn London.

So, Bucky isn’t wrong. They’ve always slept in the same place, but Steve isn’t sure how to articulate that huddling together for warmth under two army blankets in occupied France in the February freeze is slightly different to snuggling together under the luxurious blankets and sheets that the Tower provides.

“You’re right,” he eventually agrees, having nothing better to say.

Bucky nods, satisfied, and goes back to rummaging in the closet. He comes out less than thirty seconds later, looking down at a pair of jeans and holding the waistband out between his hands.

“Aren’t these really big on you?” he asks, shaking the legs so that they flop about. When he turns to look up at Steve, it’s almost as if he does a double-take.

It’s on the tip of Steve’s tongue to say something, but he holds off, waits, and then Bucky’s eyebrows seem to climb up to his hairline. With all that talk of what they used to do, he just hopes.

“Did you –? Did you use to be smaller?”

“Yeah. I did,” Steve nods, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu from the conversation.

“And –” Bucky frowns, his face scrunched up, clearly trying to grasp some kind of memory, and Steve can barely keep still, wanting to reach out and pull it out of Bucky’s head himself. He resists the urge and waits.

“…and I took your shirt once?” Bucky says, it like it’s a question, and Steve nods, barely daring to breathe.

“…and I put it on and I tore it.”

“Yes!” Steve shouts, unable to contain himself or hide his excitement anymore. He feels like his jaw is breaking from the smile on his face. “You did!”

Bucky’s smiling too. “You shouted at me. It was your favorite shirt!” he laughs.

“Yes, yes, it was!”

Suddenly, Bucky’s smile falters as he says, “Because Sarah made it.”

“She did,” Steve agrees, and the grief still stings, but it’s made easier somehow that Bucky’s remembering her too, that Steve isn’t the only one anymore. That her memory lives on, not just in him, but in Bucky too.

“Your mom,” Bucky nods, like he’s committing that fact to memory. “Her name was Sarah.”

“Yeah, it was.” Steve doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, so he settles into something in between.

Bucky shakes the jeans once more before crouching down and putting them on. They fit pretty well and Steve makes a mental note to ask Pepper for some clothes for Bucky too.

* * *

When Steve gets into the kitchen after his session in the gym two days later, he notices that his laptop is open on the table.

_Huh._

He doesn’t remember leaving it there. Then he remembers that he’d offered it to Bucky to use and figures that must be it: maybe Bucky had borrowed it while he’d been working out. He taps the space bar, idly wondering what he’d been using it for, and then jumps about three feet in the air when he sees what’s on the screen.

He recognizes the website; it’s the porn site that Tony had teased him about when he’d first arrived at the Tower. The one he’d spent all night watching and hasn’t dared to open since.

Bucky, clearly, has no such qualms.

There are several tabs open, all with titles in capital letters. The one on the screen is headed HOT BLOND BANGS HIS BEST FRIEND ON THE COUCH, and it does, indeed, seem to be paused on a frame depicting precisely that; two well-muscled guys, one of them nailing the other. He thinks he remembers a couple of the movies from his own night of shame a few weeks ago – the cowboys look familiar, and in fact, one of them might be the blond currently contorted on the screen – but some of them seem to have been more recently uploaded: THEY FIGHT THEN THEY FUCK is a new one, as is BALLS-DEEP IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. He’s just wincing in sympathy with whoever’s on the receiving end of TINY TWINK HIDES A ZUCCHINI when he notices the last tab, labeled THE MIGHTY THOR WIELDS MJOLNIR.

Now _that_ piques Steve’s interest. With a quick check over his shoulder to make sure Bucky is nowhere in sight, he clicks on the tab and watches a few seconds of it.

Obviously, the guy in the movie isn’t Thor, but it’s not too bad of a likeness. This is apparently a solo appearance, and Mjolnir seems to be a euphemism, but what ‘Thor’ lacks in co-stars, he makes up in enthusiasm. Steve is transfixed. He presses play again and watches a little more, and wow, okay, he might need to take this somewhere less public.

Of course, it’s just as he’s about to do that that Bucky walks in.

His face when he sees Steve and the laptop is an absolute picture. It would be funny if it wasn’t so mortifying. Bucky throws up his hands, as if to protect himself, and backs away.

“Sorry!” he gasps. “Sorry!”

Steve slams the lid of the laptop down so hard that it almost shatters.

“You know, if you wanted to borrow my laptop, you could just say,” he says, because really, this is Bucky’s fault for looking at that stuff in the first place.

Bucky looks horrified.

“Oh, God, no. I mean. No, thanks.” He’s flushing crimson. “Maybe…maybe, um, I should get my own after all.”

“Yeah, good idea.” He’s looking at Bucky in an entirely new light. Seriously, Thor porn? When he _lives_ with the guy? Does he have no decency at all? Sure, almost everyone on the team has seen Thor wandering around naked by this point, but porn, somehow, seems a step too far.

“Let’s just not say anything about this, yeah?” Steve says, needing desperately for this conversation to be over.

“_Yeah_,” Bucky says fervently, and he backs out of the kitchen.

After a moment, Steve carefully picks up the laptop and takes it back to his room. Then, virtuously, he closes everything down and deletes the browser history. Bucky deserves his privacy, after all.

He spends the rest of the afternoon skulking around the gym and the roof garden, dealing with his shame and mortification in private. At least he does until a text from Tony orders him out of his self-imposed isolation, leaving no room for disagreement.

<_Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, must be in the living room at 9:00 tonight. Team bonding! No arguments, Barton!_>

When Steve and Bucky get to the main living area of the penthouse, the screen is active and an array of movie posters fills it. The couches and chairs have been arranged for optimum viewing distance, and Steve thinks he can hear kettle corn popping in the kitchen.

When he peeks around the wall, he does indeed see Bruce by the stove shaking an enormous pan, which is the source of the popping. Pepper is standing by the other counter, filling a blender with a variety of different fruits and vegetables. She’s dressed down for once in a stylish sweater and sweatpants set.

“Hi guys,” she smiles when she sees Steve and Bucky by the breakfast bar. “There should be plenty for both of us, and I’m putting in some new nut butters!”

She means Bucky. Steve knows Pepper’s been sharing her daily smoothies with Bucky for almost a week already, showing him how to use the blender and filling the fridge with all sorts of exotic fruits and vegetables. Steve even saw Bucky warily filling up the blender a few days ago and sipping the resulting concoction with a speculative expression.

Bucky nods at her with a small smile while Steve goes to help Bruce empty the huge pan of popcorn into several waiting bowls on his side of the kitchen. The sugary, salty, and buttery smell wafts everywhere as they shake the final kernels loose from the bottom of the pan. Then Natasha and Clint arrive, heralded by the ping of the elevator. They’re both carrying several paper bags with a logo shaped like a soup ladle on the side.

“We come with liquid nourishment!” Clint shouts, holding one of the bags aloft as Natasha places the rest on the counter.

“We thought that trying out some different liquid foods might be a good idea, and this chain makes pretty damn good soup,” Natasha explains.

Bucky’s already moving towards the bags with a curious expression as Natasha starts to unpack carton after carton onto the table. Steve has to pretend to get the beers from the fridge for much longer than is really necessary just to keep his composure. The kindness of everyone around him suddenly feels so overwhelming. Bucky deserves it, he deserves it all, but Steve doesn’t know how to express his gratitude without breaking down in tears right there in the kitchen.

He’s pretty much half-buried in the fridge when he feels Clint step up beside him and pull out a six-pack of soda from a compartment in the open door. He doesn’t move away though, just stands there next to Steve, and after a second, Steve gets that he’s shielding him from view of the rest of the room, where Natasha’s busy pulling the lids off of the soup containers with a mixture of new smells entering the room with each one, Pepper’s pouring the smoothies into glasses, and Bruce is placing the popcorn bowls within easy reach of each seat.

Steve lets himself take a shuddering breath, trying to pull himself together.

“You’re alright, Cap,” he hears Clint saying with that low, steady tone of his. “You’re alright, just take the minute.”

Steve nods, breathing the cold air of the fridge, focusing on the cool glass of the beer bottle under his fingers where he’s already reached for one. He doesn’t know how long they stand there – it still must be less than a minute – when he feels like he’s finally catching his breath. Clint helps him grab several different beers from the fridge and arrange them on the counter for everyone. They finish just as Tony and Thor come through from the elevator.

They’re both looking somber. They’ve been working on the communication relay with Asgard for weeks now with not much progress, and Steve can see that Thor’s slowly starting to lose hope, but he puts on a cheery face as soon as he sees everyone and jovially greets Bruce with a hug.

“We missed you in the laboratory today, my friend!”

Bruce taps him on the back, returning the hug. “I know, hated to have missed it, but I promised to dial into the Zurich conference months ago.”

“I understand, my friend! We shall try again tomorrow!”

“Yes, yes, yes, but no more shop talk!” Tony declares, flicking through the selection of movie posters. “It’s movie night now!”

“Good to see you not naked, Thor,” Clint says, and behind him, Steve thinks he hears Bucky drop something and knows for a fact that they’re now both thinking of THE MIGHTY THOR WIELDS MJOLNIR. He considers pressing one of the cold beers to his crimson face, but worries that might draw too much attention to himself.

“Indeed!” Thor says, looking slightly puzzled, though he’s still smiling. “But that would be inappropriate for a movie night, would it not?”

“Didn’t stop you in the kitchen yesterday,” Clint mutters, but Thor has become distracted by Tony’s loud commentary on the movies he’s looking through and says nothing. After much searching, Tony finally clicks on the one he seems to have been searching for. “We’re inducting Capsicle and Freezer Burn here to a classic!” he proclaims to the room.

Natasha looks at the selected poster and throws several popcorn kernels into the air and then catches them all with her mouth in neat succession. “I’ve never seen Star Wars either,” she says, with a shrug.

“What!?” Tony and Clint both exclaim in unison.

“How is that possible?!”

“It’s an American classic!”

Natasha just grabs more popcorn and puts on her terrible Russian accent. “We not watch terrible American propaganda, right, comrade?” She nudges Bucky in the side, who nods very seriously.

“Да” Bucky says, but his Russian is pitch-perfect as far as Steve can tell.

Tony just gives them both a raised eyebrow and carries on. “Now these are the originals, none of that shit that Lucas added in the 90s. Sacrilege, that was! Luckily, I spent most of the late 90s fucked off my head, so I can’t really remember the re-releases.”

Eventually, after much hassling with plates and glasses and beer, everyone finds a seat. Steve notes that as if by mutual agreement, Clint and Natasha both wedge themselves into an oversized armchair, folding their arms and legs and bodies over each other so well that in the low light, he struggles to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. He sees Bucky looking at them too, with a calculating expression.

Steve doesn’t pay that look much heed until he’s sitting on one of the couches with his beer and popcorn and soup on the side table and Bucky flops down next to him. Well, ‘next to him’ is a bit of an understatement; ‘on top of him’ would be more accurate. He seems to be determined to put Clint and Natasha to shame, worming his way under Steve’s arm and plastering himself right against his side, with his soup and smoothie carefully placed on the floor by the couch.

Steve feels several pairs of eyes on them, but resolutely keeps his on the screen. Bucky doesn’t seem to care, loudly slurping his smoothie and digging his toes under the cushions. No one says anything and Steve is grateful when the movie finally starts to play.

If he’s really honest with himself, it’s actually really nice. Sitting with Bucky under his arm, a warm weight against his side, and snacking on popcorn like they’re actually on a date. Not that he’d date Bucky, but it’s still nice. The films themselves are also a lot of fun. They remind Steve a little of those swashbucklers he and Bucky would go and see at the Prospect. Tony and Clint are both quoting some of the lines and cheering at the most heroic parts like two kids.

It’s almost 3 am by the time the second Death Star explodes and the small bear-monkey creatures start to party. Bucky’s snoring against his shoulder, both of his arms around Steve in a near-on death grip.

Both Natasha and Clint are fast asleep, curled up into each other with their heads pressed together. Pepper is dozing with her head in Tony’s lap, who, along with Thor and Steve, is the only one left awake. Bruce had called it a night after the second film had ended.

They all start getting up, and, in Tony’s and Steve’s cases, start to rouse the people sleeping on them. It only takes a few gentle pokes to wake Bucky just enough to get him to stand up and follow Steve into their room. Thor waves them a “good night” from his door, while Tony and Pepper head to the master suite. They leave Clint and Natasha sleeping on the chair.

Bucky barely manages to shed his outer clothes before he’s crawling under the covers of their bed. Steve doesn’t bother brushing his teeth either, just chucks his jeans somewhere near the closet door and crawls in next to Bucky, who’s quick to pull Steve back against him, his arms coming around Steve’s waist with their familiar comforting weight.

Just before Steve falls asleep he hears Bucky murmur, “I really like your friends.”

“I like our friends too,” Steve mutters back, already half-gone.

* * *

The next morning, Steve and Bucky go to the communal floor for breakfast, where they find Natasha sitting on a couch and reading a book. Bucky goes to root about in the fridge and look for potential smoothie ingredients, while Steve gets a cup of coffee and joins Natasha. They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, Natasha occasionally turning the pages and Steve sipping his coffee and wondering what Bucky’s going to find for their breakfast.

It’s nice.

Which is probably why it doesn’t last. The peace is disturbed by Tony striding purposefully into the living room and announcing, “Team briefing, five minutes! We should have those. Since we’re a team.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“How disappointingly professional of you,” she says, but there’s a teasing tone in her voice, and she sets her book to one side. “Do we need to head to the lab?”

Tony nods. “Already asked Thor and Bruce. Can you find Barton through echo-location or telepathy or whatever it is you two have and bring the veterans along too?”

“You _could_ just ask us, you know,” Steve grouses. “We’re right here.”

“Yeah, but one of you is doing his best to fit everything under the sun into my blender, and the other one’s watching him do it,” Tony says. “Thought it was best to speak to the one who’s _really_ in charge.”

Natasha gives him a salute just as, as if on cue, the sound of the whirring blender fills the room.

“See you there,” she says, and Tony gives a curt nod and heads out.

“You heard the man,” Natasha says, nudging Steve with her foot and standing up. “Come on. You can bring that,” she calls over her shoulder to Bucky, gesturing to his enormous smoothie, which he’s currently trying to pour into a container that’s way too small for that amount of liquid.

The lab Tony’s chosen for the briefing is only a few floors down.

“What’s going on?” Clint asks; somehow, he’s arrived there and is sitting at the table clutching a giant mug of coffee without Natasha even summoning him. Maybe they really _are_ telepathic.

“Just a moment,” Tony says. “We’re waiting on Bruce and Thor.”

“Nat,” Clint hisses as she, Steve, and Bucky take their seats around the table, “He did it again.”

Natasha frowns.

“What, even after what we said?”

Clint nods fervently. “_Yes_. I keep telling him it’s weird, but it must be some kind of Asgard thing. I know we’ve gotta be, like, tolerant of other cultures or whatever, but that’s three times this week, and it’s just so unexpected, when you walk in on him like –”

Natasha clears her throat loudly, and Steve looks up to see Thor walk in.

“Oh, hello Thor,” she says pointedly, and Clint shuts up at once. “Nice _clothes_.”

Thor beams. “Thank you, Lady Natasha! Your assistance in choosing them was most helpful. I do hope they will be pleasing to my lady Jane; I have just spoken with her and she has agreed to end her project with SHIELD in order to come to assist with our work here with the Asgardian communication device. I am most anxious to look my best for her.”

“Wait until Bruce hears that,” Tony says. “He’s wanted to meet her forever.”

Steve surmises from what Natasha said that Thor’s been wandering around naked again. He’d almost feel disappointed to have missed it, if he hadn’t got Bucky to…and _that’s_ where that train of thought ends. He doesn’t have to work too hard to put a stop to it, because Bruce comes in and takes a seat. His hands are full of a selection of tools, some of which Steve isn’t confident he could name.

“You could have left those in the other lab, buddy,” Tony points out as he approaches the table.

Bruce looks down at the tools like he’d forgotten they were there.

“Oh, yes,” he says vaguely. “I forgot I still had them. So what’s going on?”

“Thought we should have a catch-up,” Tony says, in a would-be casual voice which instantly makes Steve wary. ”Share what we’ve been up to. I’ll go first.” This confirms Steve’s suspicions. Tony raises a hand and draws a screen in midair, which displays something that looks like an enormous amount of knotted string. “Jarvis and I just found something big. No idea what it is; the encryption’s too hard for even us to break without a lot of work. All we know is that it’s big, it’s important, and it’s HYDRA.”

“Can you get into any of it?” Bruce asks, and Tony gives an unamused snort of laughter.

“Sure. The only bit we’ve been able to break is a really fucking awful HYDRA-themed Captain America outfit.” Tony displays an image on the screen; it’s a black costume, with a red skull on the chest, and a black and red shield to match. Everyone shudders.

“I feel physically ill,” Clint says.

“They got your muscles totally out of proportion,” Natasha comments.

“And that’s enough of _that_,” Tony says, sweeping the image away.

“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Steve asks, wanting to distract them from the hideous image, but knowing as he says it that there won’t be. If Tony and Jarvis can’t crack it, _he’s_ not going to be much use, but he wants to be able to do something.

It’s clear that Tony’s rattled by the fact that he can’t instantly decode this file; Steve remembers how effortlessly he’d downloaded all of SHIELD’s files back on the helicarrier.

“I think it’s just going to take time,” he says, though he sounds irritated, because patience isn’t exactly one of his strong points. “Give us a few days.”

“You couldn’t have told us this by email or something?” Clint says. “Why get us all here?”

“Because we’re a _team_ and we share information,” Tony says, sounding more annoyed. “Anyone else got anything to say? Anyone been doing anything at all, aside from blend their way through every nut known to man and parade naked around my Tower?”

He pauses, seeming a little out of breath, a flicker of pain darting across his face as he holds his chest.

“Hey,” Bruce says, laying a placating arm on Tony’s forearm. “Tony. I’m sorry about the files, but we’ll get there. And we’re _all_ going to do our bit.”

Tony sighs, deflating suddenly. He looks exhausted. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.”

Thor, apropos of nothing, says, “Bruce, my friend, would you hand me that rubber chicken over there?”

Nobody says anything for a moment. Bruce recovers first.

“I’m sorry, the what?”

Thor points to one of the unidentifiable tools in front of Bruce, which definitely looks nothing like a rubber chicken. “The larger of the two. I should like to examine it. We do not have rubber chickens like this on Asgard.”

Bruce looks uncertain. “I’m not sure what you mean, Thor.”

Thor frowns, annoyed. “That one, there! The rubber chicken by your hand!”

This is very surreal. “Thor, that’s a gamma modulator,” Bruce says, clearly trying to sound reasonable and just about succeeding. “I was trying to use it for the Asgard communicator.”

“It is exactly as I said, a rubber chicken!” Thor says, sounding increasingly irritated. “Please let me see it!”

Bruce shrugs and hands the device over, and Thor inspects it closely. As he does this, Tony turns to address Steve and Bucky, clearly deciding to ignore whatever the fuck is going on with Thor and Bruce, who are still arguing over the exact terminology for whatever the thing is.

“So, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I actually do have something else for you,” he says. “The whole shit with Carter’s file got me thinking that Fury probably didn’t give you a whole lot on your old team either.”

“Well, he told me most of them were dead.” Steve snaps, because he isn’t quite over everything that happened right after he woke up in that fake room in the future.

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Tony nods. “But, like, I thought you might like to know a bit more about them. You know, life and times and all that. Come over here.”

He leads them away from the table to a couch in the corner and then hands them a large tablet. Then he taps it a few times and it comes to life with the pictures and names of all the Howling Commandos, all but him and Bucky. Both ranks and serial numbers listed out before them.

“So, here’s everything dear old Dad had, and what the US Army had, and anything else Jarvis was able to get from historical records,” Tony narrates, while Bucky’s leaning towards the screen, reaching out to flick open Dum Dum’s file. He’s picked up how to use most of the technology at the Tower at a rate that makes Steve envious.

“Timothy,” Bucky sniggers suddenly. “God, he hated it when we called him that.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah, he did.”

“Or Timmy,” Bucky suggests, and Steve sniggers. Dugan had really, really hated ‘Timmy’ and Monty had never let it die down, especially when there were ladies around.

They go through each file individually, losing track of everything that’s going on but the information before them. Tony hovers by them at first, but he eventually grows bored, muttering something about the world’s most tiresome history lecture and heading into the small kitchen at the side of the lab, which contains a gigantic coffee maker.

Steve’s glad to see that Dugan had taken command of the Howlies after he’d died. There are several pages of redacted mission briefings and personnel files, from which it’s apparent that he’d also recruited some new members and carried on training soldiers long after the war. He’d even worked for SHIELD right after it’d been founded. There are a few letters from Peggy and a couple of photographs that show her, Dum Dum, and Howard in what looks like a very fancy house and a lot of palm trees. Steve loves the thought that they all still kept in touch, stayed together.

Right now, Dum Dum is in a retirement community down in Florida. Steve knew he was alive, but it’s comforting to have the address.

“We could go,” Bucky says. “Drive down the coast.”

Steve nods. The thought of just taking the bike and driving down the small roads, stopping whenever the mood takes them, is tempting. _Eventually_, he thinks. When Bucky’s better and they’ve finally taken off all the heads that HYDRA still has.

He flicks open the next file.

Jim worked with Dum Dum for a while after the war. There’s a lot of redacted reports in his files too, but apparently he’d moved back to Fresno in the 60s and gotten married and trained as an engineer at CalTech. He had two sons and a daughter. One of his sons actually teaches at a school in New York.

They both spend a long time looking at the family pictures, which seem to have been sent to Howard in the 70s. Steve loves seeing Bucky smile at each and every one. Eventually, they open the next file.

Gabe seems to have stayed with the team too, at least for a while, but he’d retired in ’52 and gotten married and moved to France. There’s only a few letters he’d sent to Peggy in the file, nothing much, which Steve feels sad about. He misses them all fiercely.

There isn’t much information on Frenchie either, except for a commendation from the French government given to him in 1956, which Bucky reads out loud in perfect French. Steve can follow along a bit with what he learned while working with the resistance in Paris those few months. There’s even a picture, and Steve can actually pick out Gabe and the woman from the wedding photo in the line-up.

They open up the final file, which has a significant amount of redacted reports from the British Intelligence service. Monty had returned to England not long after the war and had worked for MI6 for several years. Steve is sad to see that he never married and that he’d died from pancreatic cancer in ’83.

Once they close the last file, Bucky leans back on the couch, eyes distant. He looks out at the New York skyline.

“They had good lives,” he says eventually, and Steve nods. He can’t argue with that. All of the Howlies had had good lives; they’d carried on after both of them, and that’s all Steve could ever wish for.

“We didn’t,” Bucky suddenly says. “All we have is black darkness for seventy years.”

It’s the closest he’s come to talk about HYDRA since coming into the Tower, the closest he’s ever come to admitting that this is no longer a mission or an op for him, and Steve doesn’t quite know what to say. He thinks of all the things Peggy had told him, how she’d implored him to live his life, to have a future.

So instead, he pokes Bucky in the side. “Well, we’ve got the time now, we’re gonna have a good life now. The both of us.”


	8. Bag of Dicks

**Bag of Dicks**

(U.S. Army) Slang for a problematic or intractable situation.

It’s barely 10 am and Bucky’s still half-wrapped in Steve and half-under the comforter. His nose is squashed tight into Steve’s armpit. Steve runs his fingers through the mess of bedhead that is Bucky’s hair, gentling through the tangles. Bucky makes a pleased sort of noise and digs deeper into the duvet and the side of Steve’s body. Steve thinks he might feel metal fingers digging underneath his side too, just to get a tad closer.

“How about some breakfast, buddy?” Steve suggests, but keeps his voice low.

“Muahh.” A clearly less pleased noise comes out of Bucky’s mouth, which is pressed right into Steve’s lat. The sound feels hot against his skin, where Bucky’s mouth is now open.

“We can’t just lie in bed all day,” Steve laughs, but he makes no effort to extract himself from Bucky’s hold.

“Yes we can,” Bucky mumbles, not making any moves to untangle himself either from Steve or from the burrito he’s made of the bedclothes.

Steve can’t help smiling, rubbing his whole face into Bucky’s unruly mass of hair. It smells like his shampoo, like their bed, and doesn’t that thought make his hands tighten around Bucky, pulling him even closer. All of which Bucky seems to love, his arms coming around Steve’s middle as he hikes his leg over Steve’s hip.

And right over Steve’s dick. Which is hard.

Steve freezes, Bucky freezes, but only for a second, because then he’s moving his leg, a measured back and forth right over Steve’s cock.

“Buck,” Steve gulps. “What –, what are you –?”

“Making you feel good,” he says, like it’s that simple. “Does it feel good?”

It does. It feels so fucking good, but Steve can’t, he shouldn’t. “It’s –, yeah, Buck, but –” Steve tries to argue, but his heart really isn’t in it, and Bucky’s thigh is pressing into his dick, the solid muscle of it firm and hot.

“You’ve done so much for me, let me help you for once,” Bucky murmurs against his jaw, fingers sliding over Steve’s chest, thumb brushing a nipple as if by accident.

“Bucky, you don’t have to –” Steve stutters, as Bucky’s thumb slides back over his now-peaked nipple.

“Let me, please, Steve,” he whispers, and it’s the first time he’s said Steve’s name out loud. Just the sound of that makes Steve’s dick throb even worse under the press of Bucky’s leg.

“Okay,” his mouth says, before his brain can interfere.

Bucky moves his leg down as his hand slides lower over Steve’s belly; gently over his cock, rubbing the cotton of his sleep pants. He isn’t sure what to call the noise that comes out of his mouth at that first, sweet touch. It must be good, because Bucky laughs, a gentle rumbling sound. His fingers tighten and the movement turns into a stroke.

It doesn’t take long for Bucky to slip his hand under the waistband and grab Steve’s cock nice and properly. Steve helps by pushing his pants down, only partly embarrassed at the sight of his own hard dick, already red and leaking from the tip just barely exposed by his foreskin. Bucky squeezes just below the head, working his thumb into the wetness of the slit.

Steve arches into that slight touch, happy just to stay here forever, but Bucky has other plans. He gets Steve to roll over until they’re both on their sides, pressed chest to chest. Steve hides his face between the pillow and Bucky’s shoulder, grateful for the darkness, allowing himself to not think. Letting himself just feel for once.

Bucky’s settling Steve right where he wants him, his other hand grabbing Steve’s ass, encouraging him, squeezing the thick muscle, and Steve takes it, starting to fuck into Bucky’s fist, tight and hot, his pants now pushed down around his thighs. He feels trapped and held and protected, unable to stop the little noises his mouth seems to want to make, seems to want Bucky to hear.

Steve isn’t sure if Bucky does it on purpose or if the movement is a total accident, but Bucky’s fingers slide into the cleft of his ass where he’s encouraging Steve’s thrusts. The tips just brushing the rim of his anus. It’s only a light touch, but Steve moans and pushes back into it, wanting and needy.

He can feel Bucky go still for just a second, just enough time for him to start doubting himself, before those fingers are back, purposeful now, rubbing over his hole in tight little circles. Pressing experimentally, but not breaching him.

“You like this?” Bucky whispers, and Steve nods, feeling his face flame even where it’s hidden against Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky just hums a reply and tightens his grip on Steve’s cock. It’s bliss, all of it. The smell of Bucky all around him, his body pressed close, touching Steve the way he’s always fantasized about in the deep recesses of his brain. Those thoughts that he’s never really given voice or shape to. Had been too afraid to.

Steve jerks and gasps as Bucky finally pushes the tip of a finger inside him after all the teasing. The metal is skin-warm but unyielding where it sinks into him. It feels tight and hot, and Steve nearly sobs as he works his cock into Bucky’s fist and squeezes down on the finger in his ass.

“Fuck, Bucky,” he pants into Bucky’s shoulder, mouthing at the cotton of his t-shirt. “I’m gonna –”

It’s all he manages before he’s coming in shuddering spurts all over Bucky’s hand and the front of his shirt. Bucky pushes the finger deeper, letting Steve ride it, squeeze it with the aftershocks that rock him, panting and moaning into the warm, dark space of the bed and Bucky’s shoulder.

It takes him a moment to recover, to come back to himself and feel the hot, hard length of Bucky’s cock against his hip through his sleep pants. Feel the way Bucky’s gently rocking into him, the way his breath is puffing against Steve’s cheek on each gentle thrust. How he’s slowly getting himself off, and Steve can’t have that.

He fumbles to get his hand between their bodies and onto Bucky’s cock through the fabric. Bucky freezes as soon as Steve touches him, and Steve stills too, wanting to take care with this. To be good, to be kind.

“Is this okay?” he hums against Bucky’s temple, who’s quick to reply, “You don’t have to,” still breathless.

Steve nods, not moving even when Bucky still slowly presses his cock against Steve’s hand, almost as if he can’t help himself, his breath a soft drawn-out whine.

“What if I want to?” Steve asks softly, letting the backs of his fingers slide up and down that hot, hard length, the cotton rucking up between them.

“Uh,” Bucky hesitates. “Why would you want to? I’m not –”

The silence settles between them, all those words left unsaid, and Steve’s glad Bucky didn’t finish that sentence. He isn’t sure what he would have said or done if he had, and Bucky doesn’t need his anger, not right now.

“Bucky,” Steve sighs. “You made me feel real good, and I want to make you feel good too. Is that okay?”

That seems to be the right thing to say, because Bucky’s nodding against him, his toes pressing into Steve’s calf, still under the covers. “Yeah, okay.”

They both fumble to get Bucky’s pajama pants down too, and finally, Steve can get his hands on Bucky’s naked cock. He’s thick and hard and already wet at the tip as if just working Steve over has gotten him there. He thrusts into Steve’s palm even before he’s had a chance to get a proper grip, desperate, a little uncoordinated. His hands grabbing at Steve’s waist, at his back.

“Fuck –, Steve,” Bucky stutters as Steve wraps his hand around him, tight and firm, just like he would for himself.

Bucky’s hands pat all over Steve’s body, like he doesn’t really know where to touch. They eventually come to rest on his shoulders as Bucky fucks into his fist, his movements rough and desperate. He lets out a shocked, soft noise against the base of Steve’s throat when he comes. The spunk is wet and sticky between them, sliding over Steve’s knuckles and wrist.

“Easy, easy,” Steve tries to gentle, softly kissing the side of Bucky’s face and the top of his head as he comes down, shivers running up and down his body.

They lie there for a while, sticky and smelly and just perfect, breathing in sync. Maybe they sleep for a while longer too, but Steve knows that eventually they’ll have to get up, even if it’s just to wash off all the jizz. He rubs his face against the side of Bucky’s head, messing up his hair even worse.

“How about that breakfast now, huh?”

Bucky mutters something unintelligible before saying, “Sure, but bath first?”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, buddy, bath _definitely_ first.”

* * *

Steve’s on his way to the gym later that day when he decides to quickly swing by the communal kitchen on his way to pick up some protein bars, seeing as Bucky ate the last ones. There’s usually some in the fridge; Tony keeps it well stocked for Bruce’s post-Hulk moments and Thor’s insatiable appetite. Bucky had started to experiment with solid food earlier in the week and it’s been something of a success. He’s not there yet with anything strong-flavored or spicy, but pasta, pizza, and a variety of protein bars, he’s been able to stomach.

“Steve!” Thor booms at him from the couch in front of the TV. “How wonderful to see you, my friend! Would you care to join me? I am about to watch a magnificent show!”

Intrigued, Steve swerves. “Sure, Thor. What are you watching?”

“Indeed, it is a most engaging contest of worthy adversaries!” Thor says. There’s an enormous bowl of popcorn on one side of him and an equally huge bag of chips on the other, and he considers them both for a moment before moving the popcorn and patting the space next to him on the couch, indicating where Steve should sit down. Steve picks up the bowl of popcorn. “They must compete to see which of them can produce the most delicious food, often with many constraints!”

It’s a show called ‘Chopped,’ Steve finds out, which pits different chefs against each other with various cooking challenges. He’s never seen it before, but the concept is intriguing, even though he hasn’t heard of half the ingredients.

“At first, I misunderstood and thought that the losers would actually be chopped into pieces and eaten,” Thor says conversationally, halfway through the first round. “It is the sort of thing that I have seen on the more vicious worlds that I have visited. But in fact, they are simply sent home, which I greatly prefer.”

Each of the contestants has a story of overcoming difficult circumstances, which moves Thor to tears on more than one occasion.

“Such passion! Such adversity!” he sobs, between mouthfuls of popcorn. Even Steve is touched; it’s hard not to be, seeing how dedicated these people are to their work. He’d only intended to sit politely next to Thor for a few minutes before heading on to the gym, but he gets drawn into the contest, eager to find out the winner. When the episode is almost at an end and the tension is almost unbearable, a door opens at the other side of the kitchen, and Steve sees himself and Bucky walk in.

Wait, _what?_

He has to blink a few times before he can process it, but that’s definitely _him_ with Bucky. Except…_he’s _him.

“Oh, _bugger_,” says the Him-But-Not-Him, and the voice isn’t _quite _right. “You were supposed to be at the gym.”

“Steve?” says Bucky, looking uncertainly between the two of them.

“Bucky?” says Steve, wondering whether he’s hallucinating this entire thing.

“LOKI!” roars Thor, getting to his feet, and then chaos descends.

There’s a brief moment of confusion during which popcorn and chips are flying everywhere and everyone is shouting and no one can be heard above anyone else, and then Thor shouts “SILENCE,” and everyone obeys. The sound of Thor’s voice does something to make the person who looks like Steve but is not Steve no longer look like Steve, but instead look like Loki, complete with a full-length coat, impeccable suit, and that ridiculous horned helmet.

Bucky recoils from him.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, looking horrified.

“I am Loki, son of Laufey,” Loki replies, in a smooth tone, giving an ironic bow. He turns to Steve. “So, as you can see, I found out what a ‘Bucky’ is,” he says, making sure that the word is loaded with as much derision as it can possibly carry. “I understand now. You don’t take very good care of it, do you?”

“Bucky’s not an ‘it,’” Steve snarls. “And what do you mean, I’m not taking care of him?”

“Well, you don’t exactly – how is it these mortals say it? – ‘treat him right,’ do you?” Again, the phrase is almost sagging with sarcasm. “I am afraid it fell to me to do that. Actions speak louder than ill-hidden wishes, my dear Captain, and I had to make up for causing him to panic the first time we met. Surely you can understand that.”

Steve has no idea what _that_’s supposed to mean, and neither, apparently, does Thor, who says, “Explain yourself, Loki,” in a voice of such deadly calm that it manages to be more frightening than his shouting. “How dare you impersonate my friend? How dare you lead _his_ friend astray? Sergeant Barnes has lived through terrible things. Why would you add to his torment?”

“Oh, _relax_, you pompous oaf,” Loki says, rolling his eyes. “I only wanted him to have a little fun. It’s been _so _amusing to play my little games with you and your friends, now that you’ve abandoned Asgard for this pathetic planet, but then I realized that _this_ one in particular needed something only _I_ could provide.” He sniggers. “Of course, it’s not really _me_ he wants, but I appear to be the only person in this gaudy tower who can read the room.”

Bucky is looking from Loki to Steve and back again, his forehead scrunched up in a confused frown, which makes Steve want to punch Loki in his stupid smirking face. But this isn’t his fight, _yet_; he wants to give Thor the chance to deal with Loki first.

Thor doesn’t look convinced by his brother’s little speech. “If you have harmed him, Loki,” he starts, and Loki rolls his eyes.

“He has come to no harm at my hands,” he says. “Merely some entertaining diversions and good food on the rare occasions when his guard dog left him unaccompanied. Perhaps he and the good Captain saw a few things on the internet they might not have encountered otherwise, but I do not believe anything was injured there save their pride.”

Steve considers this and remembers the afternoon of TINY TWINK HIDES A ZUCCHINI, cringing internally.

“That was you?!” he says, at the same time that Bucky does, and suddenly that hideous afternoon of embarrassment makes a lot more sense.

“Agent Barton is still suffering the effects of your staff,” Thor continues stubbornly, ignoring both Steve and Bucky, which is probably a good idea. “He is a good man. He did not deserve his ill-treatment at your hands.”

“I know more than you will ever understand of how Agent Barton has suffered,” Loki says, almost to himself, and then he seems to remember that there are other people listening to him. “Besides,” he says snidely, his superior smirk sliding back onto his face, “I lost my staff, did I not? I have no power to control the hearts of others as I once did.”

“So what _have_ you been doing, then, Loki, if you cannot do that, aside from treating Sergeant Barnes to dinner?” Thor asks, and then a look of comprehension dawns across his face. “No, you do not have to tell me. I know full well.”

Steve hopes Thor is going to explain, because he has _no_ idea what Loki has been up to. Fortunately, he’s in luck.

“Destroying our clothing,” Thor says, and Steve has a sudden, vivid flashback to his ruined shorts in his gym session with Rumlow. “Imitating me, parading around naked, and insulting my friends. Interfering with my All-Speak. All your work, I suppose? Are your powers really that much weaker without that staff, or have you simply lost your imagination? Either way, such petty tricks are unworthy of you.”

“‘Such petty tricks are unworthy of you,’” Loki parrots, only he doesn’t look like Loki anymore; he looks like Thor, and his voice is a mocking imitation of Thor’s own. “‘Prithee, gentles! I am the Mighty Thor, and I am always right, and I like to lord it over the mere mortals on Midgard where I can be impressive instead of the mediocre disappointment I am on Asgard, even though I spend all my time moping and watching inane television.’ Never mind what I am doing with _my_ powers, Thor. Why are you wasting yours?”

“This is pathetic, brother,” Thor says, and Steve can see he’s trying very hard not to rise to it; his jaw is tight and his fists are clenched at his sides.

Loki immediately switches back to looking like Loki again.

“My _name_ is _Loki_,” he says petulantly. “And I am no brother of yours.”

Thor looks devastated at this, and Steve can relate; he thinks he experienced something similar a few weeks ago on hearing the words ‘who the hell is Bucky?’

In the silence, Bucky addresses Steve, taking an uncertain step towards him.

“Which times were you?” he asks, in a small voice. “Those times, when we…?” He stops, blushing, but looking determined to find out. “Was it _him_, or you?”

“It was me, Buck,” Steve says, and he too is flushing, but he owes Bucky the truth, even though he’d rather do almost anything than have this conversation right now, especially with Thor and Loki watching. “Me. Every time.”

He looks over to Loki, just to check, and sees him give a delicate shudder.

“I can confirm this,” he says. “Fear not, Captain, I have not sullied his honor. Although he is not unattractive, for a mortal, I _do_ have standards.”

“Oh.” Bucky looks relieved, though also unsure as to whether he’s just been insulted. “That’s, um, good. I thought….” He breaks off. “Was it you on the dates? The dancing?”

“You took him _dancing_?” Steve says incredulously, turning to Loki.

“Well, were _you_ going to?” Loki demands. “I have never seen anything so pathetic in my life. You are so desperately in love with him, and he with you, and you are content merely to rut against one another in the dark and never discuss it? For the rest of your lives? After being apart for such a long time?” He pauses, hands held out in a gesture of confused frustration, looking to Thor for support. “You mortals have such short existences,” he says, after a moment, “And I saw you wasting yours utterly.”

There’s a moment of silence while everyone processes this. Bucky opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it. Steve almost instinctively says “I’m not in love with him,” and then he stops, because he _does_ love Bucky – of course he does, in a way, Bucky is his _best friend_ – and he can’t say something that blunt, not when Bucky’s still so vulnerable and withdrawn, he doesn’t want to push him away, but…

“Enough of these distractions, Loki,” Thor says, and Steve’s relieved to have something else to focus on. “I know you have the Tesseract. I demand that you return it to me so that we can go back to Asgard and you can face justice for your crimes.”

“And _why_ would I do a thing like that?” Loki purrs, and there’s a smirk back on his face now, delighted to have caused some more mischief almost despite himself.

“Perhaps I should make you,” Thor growls, holding a hand out for Mjolnir, and seconds later, the hammer comes whirling through the air. Loki rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically.

“Go on, then,” he says, sounding almost bored. “I’m sure that you’ll batter me to death right here.”

Loki seems to have a point, because Thor falters, but then the door opens _yet again_ and Bruce and Clint walk in.

There’s a moment when they take in the scene, and then Bruce turns to Clint and says, in a forced conversational tone, “Is that Loki standing in the kitchen?”

“It sure looks that way,” Clint says, in a similar voice, and Steve can see that his hand has involuntarily gone to Bruce’s arm, trying to steady him, or himself, Steve isn’t sure.

Bruce sucks in a deep breath, visibly trying to control himself.

“Want to explain what you’re doing here?” he asks.

Loki’s smirk widens.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “Not that it wouldn’t be _delightful_ to spend some more time in your company, Dr. Banner, but I believe I have to be going now.”

Then he seizes a handful of the fallen popcorn and hurls it in Bruce’s face as the Tesseract forms in his other hand, tearing a rift through reality, and then Loki is gone.

Bruce gives a roar of rage, dropping to his knees, and Clint springs back, looking wary. Steve steps closer to Bucky almost without thinking about it, wishing he hadn’t left his shield back in their room. Thor shouts in frustration and hurls Mjolnir into a window, shattering the glass. Steve is torn, not knowing whether he should try to calm Bruce down or get Clint and Bucky to safety, when Jarvis’s voice crackles over the PA.

_“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes. Sir urgently requests your presence in the parking garage. Captain, you would be advised to bring your shield.”_

“What?” Steve says, confused, and Bruce roars again. He turns to see Clint backing into a corner, hands held up and trying to look non-threatening.

“Easy, Bruce,” Clint says, and Bruce roars, “NOT BRUCE, ONLY HULK!”

“_Shit_,” Bucky says, sounding a mixture of impressed and apprehensive. Thor, surrounded by broken glass, is looking agonized for having made things worse.

“Steve, take Barnes and go,” he calls over. “I shall get Barton to safety and contain Dr. Banner.”

“C’mon,” Bucky says, grabbing Steve’s shoulder. “If Stark says we gotta go, it must be important.”

* * *

Tony’s urgency is over the HYDRA code he and Jarvis have been decrypting for days now and have finally cracked, in a way, which he explains while hustling both Steve and Bucky into an SUV and pulling out of the garage. Natasha is already sitting on the front seat.

All of this had happened pretty much at the same time as Loki had appeared. Steve wonders if that’s as pure of a coincidence as it appears. He isn’t even sure if Tony knows about Loki’s appearance and decides to keep that particular crisis to himself for now.

While Tony wasn’t able to parse the contents of the HYDRA file, he and Natasha _have_ discovered its origin. Which seems to be leading them all out to Jersey. Bucky’s eyes narrow as they cross through the Lincoln tunnel and get on the 95. Steve is glad to see that his hatred of Jersey still burns strong. Tony’s still staring at the map on his StarkPhone while he drives. “Either it’s just abandoned fields or it’s military, because this is giving me nothing.”

The location turns out to be a bit of both as they finally pull up outside a set of rusted gates and step into the eerie silence of the evening. Steve sees the sign as soon as he gets out of the car. It doesn’t look anything like it used to back in the day, but the name is still the same.

CAMP LEHIGH

U.S. ARMY RESTRICTED AREA

They all look out into empty vastness. The closest set of city lights is far away on the horizon.

“The file came from these coordinates,” Natasha says as she moves closer to the gates, her phone in hand too.

“So did I.”

The words nearly catch in his throat as Bucky turns to look at the sign, mouthing the words like he’s trying to remember. Steve wonders what he’s thinking about. He never spoke much about Lehigh or the training and Bucky hadn’t asked, too angry at Steve for even enlisting in the first place.

Tony cuts the flimsy lock and chain holding the gates together easily enough and they all head into the base proper. There seems to be almost no security. Which is suspicious in itself.

“This is the camp where I was trained,” Steve tells Bucky as they walk past the offices and the barracks. All of it is still in fairly good condition, which makes Steve wonder how long the place was kept in use after his time.

“Change much?” Natasha quips from where she’s climbed up to the porch of an abandoned office building, looking for a signal.

“A little,” Steve admits. He looks around the empty fields and sees the flagpole still standing. He can almost hear the voice of the drill sergeant echoing across the grounds – “_Come on, Rogers, move it!_” – when Steve would be running behind everyone else, out of breath and out of his depth. That’d been a daily occurrence here back then. He’s not sure if he ever even told Bucky that, not in so much detail. He’d been so young then, so naive, so hopeful. It feels like it’s been decades now, and in a way, in real time, it has been.

“You can tell me about it when we get home,” Bucky says quietly beside him, as if he’s reading Steve’s thoughts, though maybe it’s all clear as day on his face, and Steve nods. He does want to tell Bucky, he wants to tell him everything. Take the time now that he’s gotten his second chance at it all.

“This is a dead end. Zero heat signatures. Zero waves, not even radio,” Natasha grumbles putting away her phone. “Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off.”

Tony shakes his head, still clicking on the screen on his wrist. “No, it came from here, we went right to the source code, there was nothing else. It’s here. I’m sure of it.”

As Steve looks around, a building catches his eye. It looks very out of place. Natasha seems to notice him looking.

“What is it?”

“Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 feet of the barracks,” he says, walking towards the heavy double doors. “This building’s in the wrong place.”

The lock is pretty flimsy too, and is easy enough to break with the edge of his shield. The door opens with barely a creak and they all descend down the stairs in a line into the dark building. The air is musty and stale, like the door’s been closed for a while. As they move deeper, Natasha finds a light switch and flicks it on. They flicker for a second, but eventually turn on, illuminating the SSR logo on the wall.

“This is SHIELD,” Natasha says, voice laced with suspicion.

“Maybe where it started,” Steve suggests, looking at the rows and rows of desks and chairs that stretch across the hall, all of them empty and filled with dust. Their footsteps echoing as they walk. They keep looking, and Steve feels a sense of unease about this quiet, abandoned place. Bucky moves through it all like a ghost, his footsteps not making any noise as he walks through the shadows cast by the harsh overhead lights.

There are pictures on the wall: Howard, Col. Phillips, and Peggy. They all look like they did mere months ago to Steve; they must have all been taken shortly after the war. He wonders if Peggy came back here, and decides to ask when he sees her next.

“Well hello there, Daddy dearest,” Tony says, without even trying to hide his scorn. “He really does try and get everywhere before me.”

“Who’s the girl?” Natasha asks, cocking her head towards Peggy.

Steve doesn’t really know what to say to that, but before he can even decide whether to say anything at all, Tony tsk-tsks.

“What a bad little SHIELD agent you are, pretending to not know SHIELD's first director.”

Natasha just smiles that smile that says nothing at all and shrugs. Bucky stares at the pictures for a long while, his eyes focused on somewhere far away. Steve wants to ask what he’s seeing, what he’s thinking of, but he keeps his mouth shut, looking around the room instead. Leaving Bucky to his own memories.

Steve smells it first, something off in the air, and it doesn’t take him long to see the air current flickering, an old piece of string hanging from a shelf on one of the myriad shelves lining the walls.

“If you work in a secret office,” he asks, slotting his fingers into the gap between the shelves and pulling, making the shelf slowly move with a pained groan of metal to reveal a set of doors, “Why do you need to hide the elevator?”

The sound seems to jerk Bucky out of his reverie and he comes to look at the secret door too, while Tony works out how to hack into the keypad. It only takes a few seconds and then the elevator grinds into life, the doors opening and lights turning on. Bucky hesitates for a second at the open doors before finally stepping in, his face drawn into that careful non-expression that Steve has come to hate.

As they descend, Tony measures the distance. “We’re at least five stories down now,” he says as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors slide open.

The room beyond the open doors is vast and dark, the lights of the elevator barely illuminating anything at all. The overhead lights slowly blink into life as they walk deeper into the room, revealing rows and rows of cabinets filled with strange rolls of tape and what Steve now knows to be a very old-fashioned computer station.

“This can’t be the data point, this technology is ancient,” Natasha mutters, and Tony hums in agreement until they get close enough to the work-station to take a proper look.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Tony says, pointing at the modern-looking USB station next to the keyboard. It’s the only thing in the room not covered in a layer of dust.

Tony flicks a USB drive out of his pocket. “Well, fortune favors the bold!”

Once he inserts the USB, everything around them whirls to life. The cassette wheels inside the cabinets begin to roll and buttons blink with a random sequence of lights all around them. The hiss of them is unnerving; even Tony looks taken aback.

The computer cursor begins to move, and an electronic voice reads out the text which appears on the screen: “INITIATE SYSTEM?” Leaving the blinking green cursor on the next line like it’s expecting an answer.

Natasha leans over the keyboard and types “YES.”

The whine in the cassettes changes. “Shall we play a game?” Natasha asks with a smirk, and Tony instantly answers, “Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?”

They both giggle, a tiny bit hysterically, and then Natasha turns to Steve and Bucky to explain. “It’s from a Cold War movie from the eighties.”

Steve just nods. He’s happy to see that Bucky looks equally bewildered by the exchange.

The screen blinks and a strange image begins to render. The electronic voice is back, suddenly speaking. “Rogers, Steven, born 1918.” A boxy white camera on top of the computer console begins to pan over to each of them in turn. “Romanov, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984. Stark, Anthony Edward, born 1970. Barnes, James Buchanan, born 1917.”

“This is some kind of recording,” Natasha begins to say, but she doesn’t even sound convinced herself, as the electronic voice answers.

“I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am –” The rest of the sentence is garbled as a black and white picture of Armin Zola renders on the smaller computer screen on the left of the main console.

“It is wonderful to see you once again, Sergeant Barnes. It has been too long,” Zola’s computerized voice says, dripping with malevolence, the camera pointed straight at Bucky, who flinches and steps back from the station as soon as the picture renders. Steve can see him backing away from the corner of his eye. Both Tony and Natasha are looking at him with identical frowns on their faces.

“You know this thing?” Natasha asks.

Steve feels the anger and rage boiling in his stomach, and he tries not to let it show in his voice. “Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked with the Red Skull. He's been dead for years.”

Steve moves to walk around the console, looking for something, anything, that could explain it all. Or maybe just for an off switch. Tony is still standing on the platform with Natasha, his face tight and angry. Bucky’s stepped fully back now, and for the first time since he arrived at the Tower, Steve thinks he can see genuine fear on his face.

If a computer could clear its throat, it would, as the electronic voice claiming to be Zola begins to speak again. “First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive!”

The tapes roll as he speaks, and the lights blink. “In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving – on two hundred thousand feet of data banks! You are standing in my brain!”

He sounds so smug, so self-satisfied. Steve wishes for something organic to wrap his hands around, to squeeze the life out of. The Howlies hadn’t let him get anywhere near Zola in the train. If they had, they’d probably have had to deliver a dead prisoner to Phillips and Peggy. Right now, Steve wishes that had been the case.

“How did you get here?” he makes himself ask, trying to keep his voice steady for Bucky’s sake, who’s still standing frozen, just off the side of the platform.

“Invited,” Zola sneers.

Natasha is still looking around, maybe for that off switch too, and it’s the first time Steve’s seen her uncertain. “It’s Operation Paperclip. After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value.”

“So I could help their cause. I also helped my own,” Zola confirms.

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull.” Steve has to believe it as he says it. Even with all of this around him, even with Bucky and the bank and the data trail. Even with all the evidence they’ve been gathering.

“Cut off one head, two more shall take its place,” Zola taunts, flashing the HYDRA symbol on the screen, and Steve swears that he’s smiling.

“Prove it,” he nearly spits.

“Accessing archive,” Zola says, and his voice sounds suddenly more computerized, like part of it is programmed.

A video feed begins to play. Black and white images of the war, of Schmidt, of the landing in Normandy, of Steve himself from some of the later propaganda reels.

“HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you tried to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.”

The images begin to change; now there’s Peggy and Howard, Zola’s own SHIELD file, newspaper clippings, and still Zola keeps talking.

“After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.”

On the screen, there’s a flash of a metal arm, of a red star, and Steve knows that. Knows it intimately now. He’s watched it in bed amongst his sheets, in the bathroom while Bucky brushes his teeth, in the kitchen as Bucky’s t-shirt sleeve rides up as he drinks his shakes.

“That's impossible. SHIELD would've stopped you,” Natasha says, but she sounds shaken.

Tony is uncharacteristically silent, watching the video play, his hands drawn up into fists.

“Accidents will happen,” Zola continues, his voice hateful.

Suddenly, Howard is on the screen again, the newspaper clippings telling of his death, the photos from the scene of the accident, and Steve can’t help but look at Tony, at his drawn face and mouth pulled in stony silence, while Zola carries on. “And accidents are not always accidents, are they?”

The video changes again, now just showing a grainy view of a dirt road, with the date marker of DEC 16, 1991 in the corner.

“I know that road,” Tony says, and his voice wavers. Steve can see the whites of his eyes. A car crashes into a tree on the screen, and Steve sees Tony flinch back.

“Enough!” Steve shouts as he strikes the screen with the edge of his shield, shattering it.

“As I was saying…,” Zola says from somewhere inside the machine, and the video continues to play on another screen.

A motorcycle comes into view, curving around the car, its headlights bright and sharp on the grainy footage. Someone gets off the bike. No, not someone, _Bucky_, because Steve knows that body, knows the shiny silver arm that’s clear as day on the screen.

Tony would know it too; he’s fixed it, maintained it, seen it in his home, and suddenly Steve understands where this is all going. Those press clippings of Howard, the path Zola has been leading them down with his sick, twisted little breadcrumbs.

“Tony…,” Steve whispers, as the Bucky on the video crouches down and grabs Howard by the hair to pull him up onto his knees.

Tony closes his eyes, turns his head away just for a second, just so that he doesn’t have to see Bucky’s metal fist smash into Howard’s unguarded face. Steve wants to reach out to him, wants to explain, to reason.

That it isn’t _Bucky_.

Instead, he stands frozen, unable to form the words, unsure if anything he could say would make any difference. He hears Natasha breathing next to him, the soft huff as the Bucky on the screen brings his fist down again and again. He sees the real Bucky from the corner of his eye, his eyes closed and head bowed as if in pain. Maybe he remembers it, remembers the sound of Howard’s nose, his cheekbone and eye socket breaking under his fist. He doesn’t move, just stands there, waiting.

As the Bucky on the screen lets Howard’s body slump to the ground, Tony straightens his shoulders. He stares right into the green rendering of Zola’s face on one of the smaller monitors, his eyes tight, like he’s making a decision to not look at the video still playing. To not listen to the sound of his mother crying out.

His voice shakes, just slightly, as he speaks.

“Is that all you’ve got? Like I didn’t know all of that already?”

“What –?” Zola says, and for the first time, Steve hears hesitancy in the electronic drone.

Tony turns to them all, spreading his arms, and he’s looking straight at Bucky, who’s still refusing to look at any of them, let alone the screen. Steve can’t read the expression on Tony’s face.

“Was I the only one who did the reading?” Tony asks, like this is all just a silly school project they’re on.

Maybe it’s the tone that makes Bucky look up. Standing stock-still, his eyes wide, the whites gleaming. He stutters as he speaks, voice rough. “I don’t –” he tries. “Was it –? I don’t remember.”

Tony turns back to Zola. The video on the screen has ended, frozen on a still of the burning wreck of the car.

“This what you wanted?” he asks, and now Steve can identify the rage in his voice. “You wanted me to blame the bullet and not the guy holding the gun, huh?”

There’s a pause, a hum of the tapes filling the room like the pressure of a kettle ramping up just before it begins to scream.

“It would have been convenient, I admit,” Zola eventually says into the silence. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death will amount to the same as your life, a zero sum!”

He’s back to that fevered tone again, but there’s a degree of hesitance where before there was only blind belief, and Steve takes pleasure in that. He’s ready to blow the whole fucking building sky-high when Tony suddenly leans towards the screen where Zola is.

“What's on this drive?” he demands, maybe just trying to push past the tape, the horror of it all.

“Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm,” Zola smarms, proud as much as an electronic voice can be.

“What kind of algorithm? What does it do?” Natasha says, pushing up from behind Steve, closer to the screen.

“The answer to your question is fascinating,” Zola ruminates. ”Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

Steve hears the groan of metal as the doors of the elevator begin to close. He throws the shield, trying to stop them from shutting, but it scatters on the metal as the doors slide shut.

“We are all men out of time,” Zola says behind him, the tone strangely final as Steve catches the shield on the rebound.

There’s a sudden flash of light from one of the screens and Tony lets out a pained gasp, his hand going up to his chest, where the arc reactor gleams its unnatural light, as he crumples to the ground. Natasha rushes forward to catch him, barely getting her hands under his head as he falls.

The camera turns again, now facing the still-frozen Bucky, and Zola begins to speak once more. “Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый….”

Bucky closes his eyes, shaking his head like he’s trying to dislodge a fly or an errant thought. “No,” he whispers. “Please.”

“Рассвет. Печь. Девять…,” Zola continues, his voice rising in volume.

“No! Stop!” Bucky shouts, looking around for an exit, and Steve has no idea what to do. He holds the shield, reaching for Bucky.

“Bucky, what? What is it?” he shouts over Zola’s ever-increasing volume.

“Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину….”

Bucky is clutching his head, muttering “No, no, no,” over and over. Steve tries to grab him, to pull him away, when he hears a pained groan from the computer platform and sees Tony raising his right arm. Sees the plates of the gauntlet spreading and opening from his wrist like the scales of a dragon, covering his hand and forearm and elbow. When he spreads his fingers, the center of his open palm glows bright and hot.

“Fuck. You,” Tony grunts and charges a blast into the computer console, tearing the whole platform in two, before he collapses back against Natasha, unconscious. The gauntlet shivers and folds back into itself like it was never there at all.


	9. Zero Dark Thirty

**Zero Dark Thirty**

(U.S. Army) Very early in the morning.

For the first time, Steve’s glad about the size of the car that Tony had picked out for their little field trip. After Bucky had busted them out of there with a bomb made of ordinary cleaning products he'd found stashed in a side closet near the elevator and there was nothing remaining of Zola – Bucky had been gleeful about the destruction, and Steve could hardly blame him – they'd rushed Tony back to the car.

They’ve thrown all the seats down, which has given him and Natasha enough space to get Tony lying down in the back and both of them there with him. Steve thinks that Bucky probably breaks every single speed limit in the tri-state area as they get Tony back to the Tower.

Natasha’s got Tony’s shirt ripped open and Jarvis in her ear running diagnostics on the arc reactor, giving her instructions. Tony had a small toolkit stashed in the glove compartment, which is now becoming handy as Natasha tries to pry the cover loose while Bucky speeds down the highway, overtaking cars at 90 miles an hour. Steve’s kinda impressed at how she manages to stay perfectly still on her knees, hovering over Tony while Steve’s being thrown left, right, and center.

Even with the lateness of the hour, the traffic gets bad once they reach Manhattan, but somehow, Bucky manages to get them home without stopping at a single traffic light or attracting the attention of any cops. When they pull into the garage, Bruce is already down by the loading bay, normal-sized and definitely not green anymore, ready to meet them with a stretcher and a worried frown.

As fast and as carefully as possible, they get Tony onto the stretcher and whisked up into the lab, where Thor and Clint are waiting, looking anxious. Tony’s face is pale and his breathing is shallow. Bruce has all the equipment ready and set up, while the blue light of Jarvis’s deep scan starts running over them all as soon as they wheel Tony through the doors.

“There is something I cannot scan inside the reactor core,” Jarvis states, and they all freeze.

That means that someone must have tampered with it. Recently. Steve tries to think back to all those weeks ago at the hospital after the battle of New York. With Rumlow and Pierce standing in the hallway and Tony wheeled into an operating room without any of them present, and he feels sick. Before he can voice any of it, the doors of the lab are thrown wide open and Pepper rushes in. She’s wearing what looks like a set of pajamas and an overcoat.

“There’s something in the reactor that’s interfering with it and Jarvis can’t see it or scan it,” Natasha says as soon as Pepper gets close to the gurney.

They look at each other for a moment, some kind of a silent understanding passing between them. Pepper throws off her coat and pushes the sleeves of her silk pajamas up and over her elbows.

“Let me take a look.”

Her fingers circle the holding case until she finds a set of holds and she’s able to get her hand inside the machine. Then slowly, ever so slowly, she lifts the reactor out, her hand covered in goo. Steve watches as her delicate fingers feel around the reactor and the cord connecting it to Tony’s chest.

She’s holding Tony’s heart, he thinks hysterically, watching the tight focus on her face, which shows no emotion. “Gotcha,” she mutters after what feels like hours, but in reality it’s only been seconds. Her fingers clamp down on something small around the base where the cord connects and she pulls. A black square detaches from the core and she throws it onto the table and begins to lower the core back into Tony’s chest.

“Not your first rodeo, huh?” Clint asks from where he’s perched on the table.

“Nope,” Pepper answers grimly, shaking her head. “Alright, Jarvis, can you give it a restart?”

There’s a whine and a pop as the reactor starts up again. They all wait, silent and still. Then Tony sits up with a gasp and a shout, and promptly falls off the stretcher right onto Pepper’s feet.

“Well, shit,” he swears from his prone position on the floor.

* * *

It’s mostly managed chaos after that. Tony insists on investigating the chip, even when Pepper puts on her most fearsome tone of voice and orders him to rest, while Bruce, Clint, and Natasha parse through all of the data Natasha was able to download from the tapes in the bunker before they blew it sky-high. Thor is still on the other side of the lab working on triangulating the location of the Tesseract, and, if the hunch of his shoulders is anything to go by, it’s not going well.

And Steve, Steve is standing at the side of the room with Bucky, trying not to think back on the events of the day, and especially the things Loki had said. Had insinuated. Bucky hasn’t said anything about it, and Steve doesn’t know how to even approach that conversation. He thinks about pulling Bucky aside, about just trying to say something to break the heavy silence between them, but before he can, Tony turns to look at them from his workbench.

“What were those words he was saying? What was it going to do?”

Bucky’s silent for a long time, his eyes somewhere far away. “They used them after the wipe. The chair,” he says eventually. “To make me…готов соблюдать.”

“Ready to comply,” Natasha whispers from behind Steve where she’s leaning over a monitor, and he isn’t sure if she meant for him to hear her at all.

“I just go away,” Bucky says helplessly. “All of this, all of me that you’ve helped me remember, to regain, it all goes away with just those words.”

A horrified silence hangs in the room, everyone stilled and staring at Bucky, but Steve can see no fear in those gazes, no disgust or ill will. Just empathy and a willingness to help. Maybe Bucky sees that too, maybe that’s what makes him push away from the wall he’s been leaning against. “I shouldn’t stay here,” he says, turning around and moving towards the doors. “I’m a danger to you all.”

“No!” Steve, Natasha, and Tony all say, almost at once. Tony moves to intercept him. “No,” he says again, placing his still-trembling hand on Bucky’s chest.

Bucky looks him straight in the eye, face harsh and lined with pain. “I killed Howard. I killed your mother. I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t even ask for it.”

“No,” Tony says, and his face too is a mask of hard lines. “HYDRA killed my parents. You were the gun they pointed at them.”

Bucky opens his mouth to say something, but Tony doesn’t let him. “And hell will freeze over before I let them get their hands on you again. Understood?”

Bucky nods, his hands shaking now as he places them over Tony’s on his chest. “He knew me,” he says helplessly. “Howard knew me. He said my name. I didn’t know him.” His voice is wet and his eyes are red.

“We’re gonna burn them to the ground, you hear me?” Tony says, his hands now squeezing Bucky’s shoulder. “Burn them till there’s nothing left but ash.”

Bucky closes his eyes and nods, his hand still wrapped around Tony’s wrist.

* * *

That evening, they all seem to want to stay close, though nobody’s saying very much. After Tony’s statement, they all more or less abandon their various tasks, whether completed or not, though they all stay in the lab. Nobody wants to be the first to leave, until Clint declares that it’s time for dinner.

“What?” he says, when they all look at him. “Look, I know everything’s completely fucked up and we’ve lost Loki again and Tony nearly died today and there was a fucking HYDRA guy in a computer and we’ve got a semi-autonomous assassin under our roof, but we still need to eat, right?”

He’s right, of course. Nobody feels much like cooking, even Bruce, who usually likes to feed everyone, so they order a frankly obscene amount of takeout from six different places and pile onto the couches to eat it. Then Thor remembers that he’d been watching ‘Chopped’ when Loki arrived – was that really just earlier today? It feels like Steve’s been awake for weeks – and he puts it back on. They watch a few episodes in companionable silence as they work through the mountain of food, with Clint and Bruce occasionally arguing or objecting to the different chefs’ creations.

It escapes nobody’s attention that Mjolnir, Steve’s shield, and Clint’s bow are prominently in view and that Natasha’s still wearing gauntlets on her wrists, even if she’s trying to hide them under the sleeves of her sweater.

Bucky leans against Steve as they share a couch, and it’s such a relief to have him here, solid, breathing, warm, after what could have happened earlier. It warms Steve’s heart to think of how Tony and Natasha had defended Bucky, when just a few days ago they hadn’t even wanted him in the Tower. He’s so grateful to them, _for _them.

One by one, everyone leaves to go to bed. Clint and Natasha get up together, but Natasha doubles back to plant a gentle kiss on first his cheek, then Bucky’s. It doesn’t even weird him out when Thor does the same a few minutes later.

“C’mon,” Bucky says eventually, getting up and holding out a hand to him. Without thinking at all, Steve takes it, and they head off to sleep together.

* * *

Steve wakes up to Bucky getting out of bed. He makes no sound as he crosses the room in the dark and opens the closet door. It’s only with his enhanced hearing that Steve picks out the noise of a clip sliding into place and the cocking of a gun, and then another. His eyes adjust to Bucky in the darkness, and as he listens, he hears it too. Footsteps. Six people. No, more, much more. They’re spreading out in the hallway. Strategic positions around the doors, all focused on theirs.

Bucky places a metal fingertip over his lips in the dark and does the hand signals for ‘ten’ and then ’six’ with his left hand. Steve can almost hear the plates shifting in the silence. Slowly, Bucky presses his ear to the door, making the sign for ‘enemy’ with his hands.

Steve nods and slides out of bed on silent feet, lifting up the shield where it rests against the armchair in the corner. Fighting in a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts isn’t ideal, and he doubts that Bucky’s sweatpants offer much ballistic protection either, but it’s what they’ve got, and it doesn’t sound like the people on the other side of the door are willing to give them time to change into more appropriate attire.

Suddenly, Bucky makes the sign for ‘gas’ and ‘door’ and it’s all Steve needs. He’s rushing out in a sprint towards the door, shield raised just as Bucky steps out of his way. The wood splinters and the man standing just outside holding a canister is thrown into the wall with a crash.

All hell breaks loose.

The firing of guns lights up the hallway for a fraction of a second at a time, and the clink of bullets against the shield feels eerily familiar, especially as he feels Bucky’s body behind him, firing steady and true even in the pitch darkness. He sees a body go down, and then another.

Steve hears someone shouting, “I don’t have time for this shit!” as the bullets fly back and forth between them.

“No?!” Steve shouts in return. “Just wait till you assholes wake up the Hulk!”

“Fuck you!” comes in return, and then, “Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый” over the gunfire.

Steve knows those words now, even before he feels Bucky tensing behind him. The voice doesn’t stop and Steve can’t see who it is in the dark; there are too many people.

“Рассвет. Печь. Девять.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” comes a familiar, rather irritated voice from all around them, and just for a moment, everything goes quiet. Then, music starts to blare. It’s deafeningly loud and all around them, drowning out all and any other words or sounds. Steve already recognizes the song from Stuttgart, but unlike then, it now makes him smile.

“Oh, you’ve done it now,” he whispers, more to himself than to anyone else, while Bucky takes the opportunity to bury his fist in the closest agent and takes out another one with his gun.

A door opens on the left side of the corridor and a black shape leaps out, right into the back of an unsuspecting agent as Natasha’s Widow’s Bites charge and crackle in the air. Another body falls to the ground. With a deafening crash, another door shatters open on the right-hand side of the corridor, and with a mighty yell, Thor leaps out, wearing his favorite pajamas, which just happen to have pictures of tiny rabbits and carrots on them, with Mjolnir in hand. The lightning hums in the small space of the corridor and Steve can see the agents starting to panic.

There’s a blinding light from the other end of the hall and it takes Steve a moment to recognize the arc reactor and the gleaming red metal of the Iron Man suit. “You were all having a party and decided to not invite me?” Tony says in a monotone, and Jarvis must be enhancing his voice, because Steve can hear him clearly over the music.

“Like I said before, I don’t see how this is a party!” Natasha shouts tetchily from the floor where she’s taking out another agent. Steve can barely make out her words, and he wishes Jarvis could assist with that. It would make things a lot easier.

Even with the music and the general chaos of the team, Bucky moves fluidly through the carnage, his metal arm and bare chest gleaming in the light of firing guns, the crackle of Natasha’s Widow’s Bites and the arc reactor as Tony takes out the rearguard in the entry hall.

They push the agents back into the living area easily enough, spreading out the fighting even more. Lightning sparks and thunders as Thor smashes into body armor and takes out men left, right, and center like he’s cutting down a field of wheat. There’s clearly more agents in the group beyond the ones Bucky had counted in the hall. Steve’s lost count of how many he’s taken down with the shield.

In the middle of it all, drowned by the light and the music, is Bucky. Beautiful and deadly, and of course he’d been like that with the Howlies too, taking out enemies from Steve’s path from a distance, but this is something different, something new and far more lethal, almost seductive in its power. Steve finds himself following Bucky with his eyes even when he’s busy bashing in another head with his shield.

An arrow takes out a body to his left and it takes Steve a moment to notice Clint perched up on top of the kitchen units with his bow, still dressed in his pajamas. Before he can even acknowledge the help, one of the agents gets a lucky shot and Clint falls back, holding his shoulder. The agent is downed almost instantly by one of Tony’s beams as Natasha leaps over the kitchen counter to get to Clint.

Steve sees the remaining agents flinch and try to flee as Bucky approaches them, each in turn. They’d come there to take him, to take his mind and his freedom, and Steve has zero objections to Bucky terminating each and every one of them with extreme prejudice. After the last body hits the ground, the music stops and silence falls over the penthouse. All of them stand there in the middle of the destruction with only their own harsh breaths for company.

Jarvis breaks the silence, voice even as always.

“Dr. Banner has evacuated to a lower floor to contain the Hulk.”

Steve nods. While the Hulk’s presence would have been great, none of them want more property damage than absolutely necessary in the situation.

“Pepper,” Tony says suddenly from where he’s standing in the middle of the room, turning around as the suit starts to dismantle around him. “I gotta check on Pepper.” He disappears down the master corridor while shouting, “Jarv! Find out how they got through our security!”

“I intend to, sir,” comes the voice from the ceiling, and it’s the first time Steve has ever heard Jarvis sound angry.

“Alright, up you get,” Natasha is muttering from the kitchen as she helps Clint up from the kitchen floor. “We’re off to medical for some pronto bullet-from-shoulder removal.”

Clint doesn’t seem too much the worse for wear as they pass, but Steve wonders if he’s just used to being shot at like the rest of them.

“I will find Banner and make sure that he is alright,” Thor announces to no one in particular, and he heads to the stairs after Clint and Natasha, jogging to catch the elevator doors, which Jarvis has helpfully reactivated after the lockdown of the attack.

That leaves just him and Bucky and the litter of bodies all around them. Bucky, who’s still standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard, a gun still clutched in his hand.

“They were here for me,” he says blankly, looking at the wide window and at the lights of Manhattan beyond. “They knew the words.”

“Buck….” Steve moves to him, reaching out, cupping his hand over Bucky’s still-bare shoulder. “We’ll fix it, we’ll find a way. I promise.”

For a second, Bucky looks at him like he doesn’t really believe Steve, the same way he’d looked at Steve every single winter as he’d vehemently insisted that he wasn’t coughing, that his lungs weren’t hurting, that everything was perfectly alright, no flu in sight.

He’s half expecting a familiar admonition in that deep Brooklyn drawl that Bucky’d lost by the time Steve had got to him at Kreischberg. Instead, Bucky lunges at him. Grasping Steve’s ass, his thighs and waist, hands rough and possessive, moving over Steve’s body almost like he’s looking for injuries, and then suddenly nothing like it at all. The metal of his left palm is still hot from combat, the servos still rumbling, but Steve struggles to pay attention to any of it because Bucky is pulling him close, close, close, and suddenly they’re kissing.

Bucky’s hot, wet mouth is tight over his and Steve responds without thinking. Opening his mouth too, tasting Bucky for the first time, and it _is_ the first time. It takes him a moment to realize that this is indeed their first kiss. All those intimacies from the past weeks and they’ve never done this before. It feels almost shocking in its simple closeness of sharing breath, of tongues and lips and teeth.

Steve becomes aware that Bucky’s hands are tugging at his boxers, pulling the fabric down, and he has the clarity of mind to remember that they’re still in the middle of the living room. Totally exposed.

“Buck,” he mumbles into Bucky’s mouth. “Come on, bedroom.”

Bucky hums in return and begins to walk backwards down the hall, pulling Steve along with him. Skillfully avoiding any knocked-over furniture or walls and not letting Steve’s lips go, even for a second. They crash into the still-dark bedroom and Bucky pushes him against the door first, kissing hungrily as soon as it snaps closed, then shoving and pushing and moving them until Steve’s pinned against the dresser, his hands restless and his body demanding.

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Bucky’s muttering in-between frantic, desperate kisses, swearing. “Fuck, Steve.”

He’s turning Steve around, his back to Bucky’s front. Sliding his hands over Steve’s elbows, down his forearms, and over his hands. Placing them down flat on the top of the dresser. “Stay. Just like that,” he whispers, making Steve shiver as he runs his hands back up Steve’s arms and down his sides. Suddenly yanking down Steve’s boxers, as he kneels behind Steve. His hands coming to cup his now-exposed ass, thumbs pressing into the crease of his thigh.

“Bucky, what’re you – what?” Steve gasps, feeling exposed and off-balance.

“I wanna taste you, can I?” Bucky asks, and Steve can feel him leaning his cheek against the side of Steve’s hip, the stubble rough on his skin. The thought makes Steve’s head spin. The idea of that stubble rubbing somewhere far more sensitive. He’d seen it, of course, on that ill-fated exploration into internet pornography, but it wasn’t something he’d ever thought anyone would want to do with him.

“Uhh –, yeah,” Steve hedges, and he sounds more hesitant than he wants to.

Bucky must take his word for it, because the next thing he’s doing is spreading Steve’s butt cheeks apart with his thumbs. Steve can feel the warm puff of air as Bucky breathes right over his hole. He can’t help but squirm under the attention. Being the sole focus of such careful consideration makes him feel almost light-headed. He yelps when Bucky licks him for the first time, a long stripe from his balls to the tip of his crack.

Bucky’s mouth is hot and wet over his hole, tongue pressing into his rim, almost like he’s kissing him there too. Steve’s fingers dig into the wood of the dresser and he hears it groan under the pressure. Bucky just hums and licks and sucks him with increased vigor, maybe emboldened by Steve’s lack of control.

Steve loses track of time, closing his eyes and giving in to the sensation, the head of his aching cock bumping into the front of the drawers as he pushes and arches into the wet heat of Bucky’s mouth. Into the hungry noises Bucky makes that reverberate into Steve’s flesh, making him moan in return.

As suddenly as it’d all started, Bucky pulls away, leaving Steve gasping. His hole wet and exposed to the air, tingling with need. With a soft, parting touch on Steve’s thigh, Bucky gets up and disappears into the dark bathroom. Steve listens to him rummage through the cupboards, wondering what he’s looking for. His breath is still barely a gasp in his chest.

Steve stands there for a moment, leaning on the dresser, off-balance and aroused beyond measure. Trying to catch his breath. His asshole throbs and aches with the pulse of blood in his ears. With his eyes closed, Steve reaches back behind himself, sliding his own fingers in-between his cheeks. Feeling the pull at his hole as he spreads himself open and brushes a fingertip over his puffy rim. It’s still wet from Bucky’s mouth and just the thought of it makes him shiver all over again. He circles his finger over himself, feeling the contractions at the teasing touch.

He’s so sensitive, he can’t help the little gasps he’s making at the contact. Carefully, almost shyly, he pushes the fingertip in. The sensation is strange, slick and hot and tight. Maybe he hears something, because he turns to look behind him and sees Bucky standing in the bathroom doorway. He’s watching Steve in return with hungry, glittering eyes, his sweatpants tented and a wet patch forming where the head of his cock is pressing into the fabric.

Steve moans, pushing his finger deeper, wanting to show off. It works, because suddenly Bucky’s stalking across the space between them, throwing the bottle he was holding onto the bed as he presses his body tightly against Steve’s back. Spreading his ass wide as soon as he gets to him, thumbs pressing on Steve’s taint, on the edges of his hole.

“I wanna get in you,” he mutters tightly, right into Steve’s ear.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve agrees, nodding desperately.

They stagger onto the bed. Steve doesn’t even know how they manage it, Bucky still plastered onto his back, his hands roaming over Steve’s hips and belly. Steve crawls over the sheets, gripping the fabric in his hands, tugging and pulling as Bucky starts to slowly work one and then two fingers inside him with the lube he’d found in the bathroom. Where that came from, Steve doesn’t know, but he’s not about to ask just now.

Steve tries to muffle the sounds into the bedding, gasping and moaning as Bucky works him wet and open. Spreading his fingers, stretching him out. When he pulls out, Steve gasps from the emptiness, his hole clutching at nothing, hungry to be filled again.

Bucky doesn’t make him wait long. The head of his cock feels thick and wide as Bucky positions himself. It hurts as he pushes inside, but it feels good too, like pressing on a fresh bruise, and Steve pushes back into the sensation, wanting, needing more. Feeling as Bucky sinks deeper and deeper inside him.

Bucky’s hands come over onto his hips, sliding around his belly as he slowly starts to thrust. Strangely hesitant and gentle at first, like he’s looking for something. Eventually, Bucky’s hands slide up his chest and he pulls Steve up, sits him on his lap, his cock buried deep in Steve’s ass. With rough hands, he rucks Steve’s t-shirt up to his armpits, the fabric damp from sweat and clinging. His fingers come to cup Steve’s pecs, catching his nipples between thumb and forefinger and giving them a roll and a pinch. Steve wails, rocking on Bucky’s cock and pushing his chest into Bucky’s hands.

It’s too much. It’s not enough.

“Yeah, Sweetheart,” Bucky croons into his ear. “Just like that, so perfect.”

And that’s not enough either. Steve tugs at his own cock, short, sharp pulls over the wet, leaking head. Unsure if he wants to come yet or hang on this knife-edge forever, the feeling of it just thrumming under his skin. Bucky’s rocking into him like he’s feeling it too, hovering on that edge.

“Baby,” he whispers as he tugs and twists on Steve’s nipples, and that’s what does it. Takes the choice out of it. Steve comes all over his own hand, rocking on Bucky’s lap, wanting to feel him inside, wanting to make Bucky come too. To know that he’s feeling it as well, that they’re connected, that they’re together, here and now.

Bucky gives a few rough thrusts and then he’s finally coming, hot, wet pulses inside Steve’s ass. It feels strange and intimate and perfect. Steve leans his head on Bucky’s shoulder, closing his eyes and breathing into the feeling of being held, of being full, of having Bucky as close as two humans can get. They stay like that for a long while, pressed together, chest to back, just breathing in sync. Steve interlaces their fingers and presses them to his chest, not letting go until he really has to, until they’re both too sticky and gross to stay still anymore.

Eventually, they shower and curl back up together under the sweaty sheets, and Steve sleeps, but not for long; he’s up again after a couple of hours, and when he wakes, Bucky is sitting up next to him, looking pale and rumpled and as though he hasn’t slept at all.

“Shower and coffee to wake us up?” Steve suggests, and Bucky nods wearily.

Every part of Steve is aching from the previous night, either from the fight or from…afterwards. It feels good though, having the dual marks of battle and Bucky all over his body, even if he winces under the hot water. Once he’s done, he dresses, and once Bucky’s showered too, they both head off to the kitchen.

Everyone else is already there, milling around in various combinations of armor, regular clothes, and sleepwear. Even Pepper has joined them, looking somehow immaculate even in her pajamas. She too is very pale. Natasha is changing a dressing on Clint’s shoulder, and Clint doesn’t look pleased about it. Thor is glaring out of the window, Mjolnir swinging by his side.

Someone, or more than one person, has tried to tidy the room up a little after the battle, setting the ruined furniture to one side and cleaning the debris from the floor. Tony, who has shadows under his eyes that almost reach his cheekbones, thrusts a pot of coffee at them both after giving Steve an appraising look.

“Barnes, Rogers, so glad you could join us.” He takes a closer look at Steve, rolls his eyes, and mutters “_really_?” under his breath, then continues in his regular voice. “Was gonna call a team meeting, but it seems the team has…met.”

Steve wonders whether any of them have slept at all. _Barely_, looks to be the answer. He and Bucky find a free couch and sit down.

“So, any thoughts after last night?” Tony says. “Other than the obvious?”

“‘Shit, fuck, argh,’ and so on?” Clint says wryly.

‘Yeah, pretty much,” Tony says.

“Shit, fuck, argh,” Bruce says glumly and everyone laughs.

“Let’s update the list,” Tony says, counting on his fingers once the laughter has died down. “Loki. Zola. My parents, my heart, Bucky. And then HYDRA breaking into our home and attempting to get him back, which _should not have been as easy as it was for them, somehow_, and threatening the safety and security of not only us, but also that of all of my employees. Peachy.”

“Seems to cover it,” Bucky says. He looks wretched. “I told you, you shouldn’t have…this is all my fault.”

“Let’s not go there again, okay, RoboBuck?” Tony says impatiently. “We covered this. You’re one of us. The important things are, one, we’re going to have to get the bastards back, and two, we’re going to have to go into lockdown.”

“What?” Bruce says, at the same time that Natasha says “No!” and then looks furious with herself.

Steve sighs. “He’s right,” he says evenly. “They’re not just gonna leave us alone now that they’ve failed once, are they? Not now they know we’ve got Bucky.”

“So what do we do?” Pepper asks, looking scared, but determined.

“Well, you obviously go to Malibu,” Tony starts. Pepper starts to protest, but Tony carries on. “I’m serious, Pep, I don’t want you here when they could attack us at any moment!”

“Where could be safer than here with you?” she counters, and Tony sighs and closes his eyes.

“I don’t know, literally anywhere?”

Pepper looks stubborn. “I am _not_ leaving you here,” she says, but Tony continues talking over her.

“We’ve got to get all of the civilians out of the Tower,” he says. “Close down all of our R&D for now, move everyone to other facilities temporarily. We need to be on watch and we all need to stay in the Tower. And I need Jarvis to look at ways of beefing up the security system here.”

“I’m already on it, sir,” Jarvis says from the ceiling. Steve thinks Tony’s pride is almost what’s hurting him most; he’d boasted that the Tower was safe, but clearly it’s not as safe as he’d believed.

“This isn’t over, Tony,” Pepper says, looking like it’s only the fact that there are other people in the room stopping her from losing her temper and making a scene. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Speaking of visitors,” Tony says, and then he looks awkward. “Thor. We’re going to need to take a rain check on Jane visiting.”

This is enough to get Thor to look away from the window at last.

“What?!” he cries, looking devastated. “Surely you cannot mean that? It has been so long! We have_ all _been anticipating her arrival!”

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Tony says. “But we can’t take the risk. She’s a civilian, she could be in danger if she comes here.”

“Or bring danger with her,” Natasha points out, and Thor rounds on her, electricity sparking around his fingertips.

“Are you suggesting that she would –” he begins, looking outraged.

“She’s been in a SHIELD facility,” Natasha argues. “We can’t risk her coming here, not if someone there who’s part of HYDRA could find out and track her.”

“My Lady Jane would never betray us!” Thor shouts, still looking furious, and Bruce gets up to stand between them, hands held wide in a placating gesture.

“Nobody’s suggesting that, Thor,” he says. “We know that we can trust Jane. But we can’t put her at risk, and we can’t risk putting _ourselves_ at risk either. You must see that.”

Thor’s only answer is a frustrated growl. He turns back to the window, staring moodily outside again.

Bruce, who seems to be uncomfortable with all the tension in the room, comes back to sit down, saying in a forced voice, “So, have we got any good news?”

“I think…” Steve says, thinking it through as he talks, “I _think_ they don’t know how much we know. There’s no way they’d have sent such a small group yesterday if they knew we know they’re HYDRA; they’d have just blasted us out of existence. They were just trying to get Buck back.”

“‘_Just_,’” Clint grumbles, clutching his injured shoulder.

“My point is, yes, they’re gonna try again, and they won’t give us long, but at least we’ve still got a bit of time to work out what to do next.”

“Breathing space,” says Natasha. She looks miserable; the prospect of being unable to leave the Tower is clearly not an inviting one. Steve doesn’t like it too much himself; he doesn’t like feeling boxed-in. Too many winters spent sick under lock and key and his mother’s watchful eyes.

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Clint asks.

Thor, still looking mutinous, moves away from the window and comes to join them, Mjolnir swinging like a pendulum.

“I will keep watch upon the rooftop,” he says. “I can take to the air if need be.”

“Not if you’re going to be obvious about it, you won’t,” Tony says. “You’ll make it clear we’re up to something.”

“Now, listen, Stark –” Thor starts, his temper flaring again, but Natasha breaks in.

“We can take it in turns,” she says, sounding very casual, even for her. “To be outside.”

“You’re not going on the roof unless you’re well protected,” Clint says, unusually stern. “HYDRA could snatch you!”

“And you!” Natasha replies indignantly. “You’re just as vulnerable as me!”

It’s the first time Steve’s ever seen tension between them. Natasha is glowering at Clint, and Clint is looking just as mad at her. Actually, it reminds Steve of how Bucky used to look at him when he’d dragged him out of fights in alleyways back in Brooklyn.

“And I guess I’d better stay off the roof in case there are any incidents?” Bruce says, in a tone of voice that says he already knows the answer.

“_Nobody_ is going on the roof!” Tony shouts. “Like I said! We’ll go into lockdown! That means _nobody comes in and nobody comes out_.”

He gets to his feet and starts pacing, not looking at anyone. Pretty much everyone in the room is looking various combinations of unhappy and angry. Steve’s seen this before on the faces of teams he’d lead in the war and it never bodes well. Time to make a call.

“Look,” he says raising a hand. Miraculously, they all turn to look at him, and Tony stops pacing. “The last two days have been a complete shitshow. We’re all tired, we’re all scared, we’re all injured. Totally understandable. Let’s just…get out of each other’s faces for a while, yeah? Take a break, get some space, get something to eat, get some rest. We’ll come back this evening and work out what we’re going to do.”

Even more miraculously, nobody argues.

“You’re right, Cap,” Clint says finally. “C’mon, guys.”

One by one, they all file out of the room. Steve suspects Tony and Pepper will probably argue some more, and maybe Clint and Natasha as well, and Thor should probably stay out of everyone’s way, but for now, at least, he doesn’t have to listen to them all arguing.

* * *

Steve and Bucky go back to bed straight after the meeting. Steve is exhausted and crashes out pretty much as soon as he hits the pillow, only waking up hours later when it’s dark outside. It feels disorientating to sleep during the day, but it’s given his body a chance to heal what little it needs to. He thinks maybe Bucky even slept a bit too, though he couldn’t honestly say.

He’s a little nervy about going back to face the team after so much tension this morning. They hadn’t agreed on a time or a place, but everyone just seems to congregate towards the kitchen again: Thor’s in there when Steve and Bucky arrive, making a pile of sandwiches and looking a little more like his normal cheerful self, and Bruce is in his usual seat in the corner, his ever-present mug of tea steaming beside him and an empty plate next to it.

“Everyone needs food, I guess,” Bucky mutters in his ear, and Steve laughs.

“May I offer you a ‘grilled cheese’?” Thor asks, pronouncing the words carefully as though he’s worried he’ll get it wrong.

“Sure,” Steve says. Thor beams and turns to fetch a plate, which he loads with sandwiches and hands to Steve a moment later.

“We do not have these on Asgard,” he says, and trust food to lift Thor’s spirits. “We have cheese, but I had never seen it prepared in this fashion before. It is delicious!”

“Yeah, sure is,” Clint says, swooping down from somewhere – possibly the ceiling – and grabbing one for himself. “Thanks, Thor.”

Natasha enters the room and she and Clint give each other excessively polite greetings, which makes Steve think they probably haven’t resolved their argument from earlier, given that they usually call each other ‘fuckface’ and ‘dingbat,’ among other things.

“Would you care for a sandwich?” Thor calls out, and Natasha’s icy smile turns genuine.

“Yeah, thanks,” she says, taking one and scarfing it down.

There’s a moment when nobody says anything, and then Steve sighs. “Guess we’re just waiting on Tony, then.”

Everyone in the room sags slightly, and he hates himself for doing this, for reminding them of the difficult situation they’re in. _That they’re in because of you_, he reminds himself, and then he hates himself a little more.

“Maybe we should just run,” Bucky had said earlier, on the way up. “Just you and me, pal. Go on the run, let your friends be safe.”

And he’d been _so, so, tempted_, to run, to just let it be him and Bucky, to protect the rest of the team, but Bucky had seen in his face what his answer was going to be before he’d even said a word.

“I’m sorry, Bucky. I can’t.”

Bucky had sighed. “I knew that when I asked,” he admitted. “You’re always the one to do the right thing. Me, I…well.”

“You too, Buck,” he’d insisted, even when he knew it wasn’t strictly true, and Bucky had known it too.

“Nah,” he’d said, with a short laugh. “And I’m not going anywhere without you. You make me a better person, Steve. Everything I ever did that was good was for you.”

Steve had been spared from thinking of a reply to that because the elevator doors had opened and Bucky had strode out ahead of him.

The truth is, Bucky’s safer here, with people like Tony and Thor and Natasha. The more people who can protect Bucky, the better.

Tony and Pepper arrive, and there’s a muted politeness between them that mirrors the one between Clint and Natasha. Everyone looks inquiringly at them and tries to hide it, but only Natasha is successful.

“I won’t be leaving the Tower,” Pepper says, sensing that they’re waiting for something.

Tony says nothing, but nods tightly. He’s clearly not happy with the decision, but Steve happens to agree with Pepper on this one; inside the Tower, with all the Avengers in it, has got to be safer than outside it. They shouldn’t help HYDRA divide and conquer.

Thor seems to sense Tony’s unhappiness and hands him a sandwich, which makes him brighten a bit. He splits it with Pepper in what appears to be a conciliatory gesture.

“I must apologize for my outburst before,” Thor says into the silence of everyone eating, looking shamefaced. “I have spoken with the Lady Jane this afternoon and she quite understands. She rightly castigated me for putting my own happiness ahead of the safety of my team.”

“That’s okay, Thor,” Steve says.

“Just make sure she comes here once this is all over,” Tony says, with his mouth full. “I’m not passing up an opportunity to talk with her at last.”

“I shall see to it,” Thor says.

There’s another brief silence, aside from the chewing of sandwiches, and Steve knows they need to start somewhere, to discuss exactly what they’re going to do now, but he’s not sure where to begin, given how heated things were earlier. He doesn’t want to upset anyone again, but they can’t shy away from this. He’s just opened his mouth and gotten as far as “We need to –” when Clint speaks over him.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” he says.

“Did it hurt?” Bucky asks, and Clint looks like he wants to throw a pillow at him, but then thinks better of it, which is probably wise; they all know what Bucky can do now. And doesn’t _that_ just make Steve uncomfortable. In the good way. Or the bad way. Whatever.

“Go on,” Bruce says. “What’s up?”

“Just a second,” Clint says, and then he says, “Hey, Thor? Are you definitely Thor now?”

“Not ath thor ath Thteve wath looking thith morning,” Steve hears Tony mutter, and he flushes furiously, but decides to rise above it.

Thor looks puzzled, and then his expression clears.

“Aye, friend Barton, I am Thor and not Loki,” he says. “On my honor.”

“But how do we know you’re telling the truth?” Clint insists.

“You should tell us something only Thor would know,” Natasha challenges, and Thor frowns again.

“I could,” he says, setting down his plate of sandwiches thoughtfully. “But how would you then know that only I would know what I said?”

“We need a way around this, in case he decides to try it again,” Clint insists. “I mean, we’d know it wasn’t you if you were naked. I get that you don’t really do that. But Loki probably isn’t going to pull that again, now that he knows we know. What if he’s spying on us? What if he screws up our plans with HYDRA?”

“Oh shit, I didn’t even think of that,” Tony says. “It would be just like Loki to fuck everything up at the last minute and get us all killed.”

“He would probably think it was funny,” Thor nods solemnly. “Though I would like to believe that he would not ally himself with such people.”

“Thor, do we need to remind you that _your brother brought an alien army through a wormhole with the purpose of enslaving humanity_?” Clint says, through gritted teeth. “I get it, family ties and all, he wasn’t totally in control or whatever, but maybe we need some perspective here?”

Thor looks abashed. “You are right,” he says mournfully. He sighs heavily. “Perhaps you should just refrain from discussing anything important when I am in the room.”

“No, see, this is how we can fix it!” Clint says excitedly. “I think we should have a codeword that we all say before we say anything important that Loki won’t know, so if Thor doesn’t say it, then we know it’s not him.”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Bruce says, sounding slightly surprised.

“I _am_ capable of thinking every once in a while,” Clint mutters, and Steve sees Natasha lay a calming hand on his forearm.

“Can I choose the –” Tony begins, and as one, everyone else in the room yells, “No!” Tony pouts.

“But how will we know this is really Thor now to give him the code?” Steve asks, returning to the original problem.

Thor gives a frustrated growl. “You cannot know. There is no way to prove that I am not Loki. For Loki would of course say that he was me, and anything I can say, he could easily invent. I will exempt myself from the plans, it is the only way.”

“No, it isn’t,” Bucky says suddenly. “That hammer thing. Only you can call it, right? So call it. Then we’ll know you’re Thor.”

“Well, shit,” Tony says, after a moment of stunned silence. “Why didn’t I think of that? This house arrest must be screwing with my brain.”

“That, or your habit of spending all night in the lab and the fact that your diet is 87% caffeine,” Bruce mutters.

Thor beams and holds out his hand. Seconds later, the hammer zooms through the room, and he holds it triumphantly above his head.

“I am myself!” he booms. “Are you satisfied?”

For some reason, everyone applauds, delighted.

“I’m just glad he didn’t wreck any furniture this time,” Tony says. “Much harder to replace it when I can’t call my usual delivery services.”

“Okay, so what word are we going to use?” Clint says, ignoring him.

“Something Loki won’t think of,” Bruce says.

“Decency?” Natasha suggests.

“Style?” Tony says, a trifle cattily.

“Honor,” Thor says sadly.

“No,” Clint says. “They’re all too obvious. We need something random, something he’ll never think of.”

“How about ‘WORD?’’’ Pepper suggests.

Tony blinks at her.

“Are you serious? ‘Word’? Like we’re all teenagers in the 80s?”

“Some of us _were_ teenagers in the eighties, Stark,” Clint jibes, and Tony tuts at him.

“Some of us were teenagers in the_ twenties_ and have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bucky points out.

“So, what, we start off all our conversations with ‘word’?” Bruce says. “Isn’t that going to sound like we’re all crazy?”

“First, we kind of _are_ all crazy, and second, who else is listening?” Tony points out, and Bruce shrugs in agreement.

Thor is looking delighted.

“It will make me feel at home!” he says. “Often our poetry recitals on Asgard will begin with a call to attention! Thank you, Lady Pepper, for your excellent suggestion!”

Pepper smiles.

“It’s just ‘Pepper,’ Thor, I keep telling you.”

Thor bows, and Pepper giggles, even blushing slightly. Clint’s genius suggestion and Pepper’s solution seem to have cheered everyone up. Steve is just wondering whether he dares bring them all down again by mentioning their situation when Natasha speaks up.

“Look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but you were right before, Tony. We’ve got to stay in the Tower. Let’s just…try to make the best of it and come up with a plan quickly.”

“I’ve spent the day increasing security,” Tony says, not even looking smug that Natasha said he was right, even though that’s never happened before. “I’ve got programs running trying to work out HYDRA’s next move, though it’s tricky, they’ve gone into lockdown since the attack. I should have something tomorrow or the next day.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “So let’s try to forget about it for now? Maybe watch a movie, try to relax a bit?”

“Word,” Thor deadpans, and they all dissolve into giggles.


	10. Mox Nix

**Mox Nix**

(U.S. Army, European Theatre) Bastardization of the German ‘es macht nichts,’ or ‘it makes no difference.’

Three days on, and ‘WORD’ is considerably less funny.

“Word,” Tony says wearily at the opening of a hastily summoned meeting in his lab.

“Word,” everyone choruses, with even less enthusiasm. Clint in particular looks fed up.

“Should we maybe get a different codeword?” Natasha suggests.

“Stark doesn’t want to tell Pepper that we think her word is dumb,” Clint says in a stage whisper.

The look on Tony’s face is enough to stop everyone from laughing, and Natasha elbows Clint in the side.

“So what do you want us for this time?” Bruce grouses, far away from his usual good humor. “I was in the middle of an experiment.”

“No, you weren’t,” Clint says. “You were just drinking tea and staring into space, I saw you.”

Bruce makes a frustrated noise and his skin glows vaguely green.

“Clint,” Natasha says.

“We’ve had an invitation,” Tony says, deliberately ignoring them. “To a garden party.”

“Oh, a garden party,” Clint says, “I’ll have to dry-clean my ballgown. Who the fuck has invited _us_ to a _garden party_?”

“_Clint_,” Natasha says again.

“Fury,” Tony says succinctly, and that makes everyone shut up for a second.

Finally, Steve says, “What?”

“Fury. Or SHIELD. Someone. A garden party. And it’s not an invitation, it’s a fucking summons. ‘To celebrate the life and work of Director Peggy Carter,’ apparently.”

“_What?!_” Steve yells again, before he can stop himself.

“Yep,” Tony says, his face twisted in a bitter grimace. “Wonder whether Fury’s going to pretend she’s come over here from England or whether he’ll come clean about lying?”

Steve snorts. “You really think he’d come clean?”

“It’s a trap,” Bucky intones, sounding like that fish-faced guy from the Star Wars movie the week before.

“_Obviously _it’s a fucking trap,” Tony says impatiently. “But I think it’s a trap we can’t avoid. We’ve got to be there. And they must be planning something for when we are.”

Nobody needs to ask who ‘they’ are.

“They must think Peggy being there will make us behave,” Steve says slowly. “Or that she’ll make a good hostage.”

“Ding ding ding!” Tony says obnoxiously, ringing an imaginary bell. “Got it in one. Try to keep up, Cap.”

“Who is Peggy Carter?” Thor asks.

“The founder of SHIELD,” Bruce says.

“And Steve’s best girl, back in the day,” Tony says, with a slight leer.

“His best girl? I do not understand. How many girls did he have?”

“Actually, he had a whole troupe of them –” Bucky starts, and Steve jabs him in the side to get him to shut up.

“Captain!” says Thor, looking impressed. “I would not have believed it of you!”

“It wasn’t like that,” Steve says, as Tony hums ‘The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan’ under his breath. “They weren’t my girls, they were just actors.”

“But why would they be acting?” Thor asks, sounding puzzled. “You are a very handsome man! They would not need to act!”

“So what do we do?” Bucky asks, sounding a little put out to have started all of this.

“Well, first, we’re gonna have to fix you,” Tony says. “Can’t have you going back near HYDRA with a broken brain, not with those trigger words.”

“Bucky’s not –” Steve begins, and Bucky says, “Steve, don’t,” and Clint says, “Oh, would you can it with the whole ‘knight in shining armor’ routine, Cap?! His brain _is_ fucking broken and he’s a danger to himself and us while it is. Just because you’re –”

“CLINT,” Natasha snaps, and she punches him in his still-healing shoulder. “Seriously, shut up!”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Clint yells, red with anger and looking almost surprised at himself for raising his voice at Natasha, but carrying on regardless. “We’re all fucking broken, Nat, that’s what we’re doing here in the first –”

“Stop it, I implore you! Do not fight!” Thor cries, getting in between them, one hand on Clint’s good arm to prevent him from raising it.

“Helen Cho,” Bruce interrupts them loudly, and they all turn to look at him. “She’s the only one, I think. At least out of the people we know. And she’s not part of SHIELD, so she’s got that going for her.”

Steve has no idea who that is, but Tony evidently does; his face lights up and he grins. “Of course!”

“Helen Cho? Is this another of Steve’s girls?” Thor asks, clearly wanting to keep up, and Bruce snorts.

“Not unless Steve’s tastes have radically changed,” he says. “She’s a geneticist in South Korea and an expert in regenerative tissue.”

“Do you know her?” Tony asks, sounding starstruck. “Her work with U-GIN is legendary. I’ve been trying to think of a reason to get her to come to New York for months.”

“We’ve corresponded a little,” Bruce says. “A few years ago, for a paper she was writing. I wouldn’t say I _know _her, exactly.”

“Do you think she’d want to come? She’s probably really busy.” Tony is bouncing on the balls of his feet at the prospect, his former bad mood completely evaporated at the prospect of such a science celebrity visiting.

“What, if you tell her we’re under siege and we need her to fix a brainwashed assassin with Russian trigger words etched into his brain? Who could resist?” Bucky says sarcastically, but there’s a flicker of hope in his eyes; Steve sees it, and it lights him up. It’s been a long time since he saw even a hint of that look on Bucky’s face.

“We can try, right?” Bruce says. “I think the curiosity alone might be too much for her to resist. I’ll send her an email right now. Don’t worry,” he says, correctly interpreting Bucky’s anxious expression, “It’ll all be vague, just enough detail to gauge her interest without giving anything away. That way, if she says no, you won’t be at risk.”

Bucky gives a small, grateful smile as Bruce pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts writing. The feeling of having something to do seems to have buoyed the whole team; Natasha and Clint no longer look like they want to kill each other, and Thor is looking less anguished.

“And in the meantime?” Natasha asks.

“We find everything else we can about HYDRA’s plans for that party and we get ready to take them down,” Steve says. “We know they won’t threaten Peggy until the party, at least. They’ll need her there to make sure we cooperate.”

“And we try not to kill each other before the party?” Tony says, with a slight edge.

“I’m sorry, Dingbat,” Steve hears Clint say in a small voice.

“It’s okay,” Natasha says. “Just try not to be a dick, yeah?”

Clint gives a small smile. “I’ll try.”

“And sent!” Bruce says triumphantly, looking up from his phone. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

* * *

After a couple of tense days, during which nobody really has any contact with anyone else, Helen Cho responds to Bruce’s email. He gathers them all excitedly with a group text in Tony’s lab, which seems to have become their usual meeting place. Everyone sits down apart from Thor, who was there already, making yet another futile attempt at the Asgardian communication device. After they all chant the codeword, Bruce summarizes the email on his phone.

“She’s got a really tight schedule, but she wants to help, in theory!” he says. “Now I guess I just have to give her the details.”

“Did you mention anything about the time issue?” Clint asks. “Because we don’t exactly have a lot of time to waste here.”

“I told her it was…sensitive, yes.”

“What was it that you actually said?” Tony asks him.

“I said that what I was going to tell her was highly confidential and that we had a patient who had some brain damage and needed areas of their brain repairing…certain parts, um, _rewiring_, for want of a better term,” Bruce says, with a guilty glance at Bucky. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to put it.”

Bucky shrugs. “S’fine,” he says. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well,” Bruce flounders, and Bucky grins. “It’s okay, you can say it. But is that enough information? What if she changes her mind once she finds out it’s me?”

“I don’t think she will,” Bruce says. “She promised to keep it to herself, and she said she’s been looking for an opportunity to do this type of reconstruction work for a while now.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine there are many patients who present with your specific circumstances,” Tony says breezily. “So, how do we feel about this? Are we cautiously optimistic?”

“She hasn’t said yes yet,” Steve cautions, not wanting to put a damper on Bucky’s good mood, but not wanting to get his hopes up either.

“Yeah, yeah, Captain Downer. She will. What’ll we say, Brucey Bear?”

“_We_ will give her the details, still without any identifying information until she actually confirms,” Bruce says.

“Excellent,” Tony says, rubbing his hands together. “I bet she won’t be able to resist now we’ve dangled the opportunity to test her work on a real person. Not that doing a good deed isn’t a reward, but it’s the _science_ that counts.”

“What do you mean, ‘test her work on a real person’?” Steve says. “You mean she hasn’t done this before?”

“Well, there’s something of a shortage of brainwashed trigger-worded assassins who are willing to let you look at their brains,” Tony says sarcastically. “She’s obviously done tissue work on humans, but not on the brain, as far as I know.”

“But…” Steve says. “What if it goes wrong? What if it makes it worse?”

“I’ll take that risk, Steve,” Bucky says softly.

“But what if I don’t want you to? We don’t even know her! What if she’s with HYDRA?”

“It isn’t up to you,” Bucky mutters, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Helen Cho doesn’t have anything to do with HYDRA. There’s no evidence in our files that they’ve had any contact with her. Speaking of which!” He turns to Natasha. “Any news on what HYDRA’s been up to, Team Red Peril?”

“No,” Natasha says in a clipped voice.

“What, nothing at all?”

“Well, I’m kinda stuck on the part where you’re willing to let somebody we don’t know experiment on one of our teammates.”

Tony sighs loudly. “It’ll be _fine_. We can trust her! Why are you all making such a big deal about this?”

“Because you _aren’t_! Because it sounds like you’re just excited to meet one of your heroes and you don’t care whether it makes things worse for Bucky!”

Tony gapes at her. Steve stares too; he’s seen Natasha irritated by Tony before, but never angry.

“We are not _things_ to be _experimented on_,” Natasha hisses, and to Steve’s alarm, he sees her eyes starting to water. Seeing him looking, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, not saying anything for a moment.

“This…is about more than Bucky, isn’t it,” Bruce says gently.

“Look, it’s been almost a week and I haven’t been outside,” Natasha says, her teeth gritted. “That hasn’t happened to me in years. _They used to chain me to my bed._ Do you think I like being forced to stay indoors all the time?”

There’s silence for a moment, during which Steve wonders whether he’s the only one who’s hearing that information for the first time. Judging by their expressions, only Clint and Bucky are unsurprised; Bucky gives a little wince of sympathy, and Clint covers Natasha’s hand with his and gives it a brief squeeze.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was therapy hour in here,” Tony says. “My dad didn’t really love me, does that count?”

“Shut up, Tony,” Clint advises. It’s the wrong thing to say.

“Hey, screw you, Tweety! I just want to make my home safe again, okay?” Tony snaps. “I want everything to go back to _normal_. I want to be able to go out to dinner with Pepper again. I want to enjoy my own roof garden. I want to tell HYDRA to go to hell. And I want us to all be _friends_ again and to have a conversation without someone blowing up. Is that so much to ask? For everyone to behave like adults?”

“Oh, and you’re a _real _role model in that department,” Clint says sarcastically. “Didn’t you once piss yourself in your own suit?”

“Want to find yourself out on the street, Barton?” Tony yells, and Thor rises from his workbench.

“Be silent, all of you,” he says. “You are squabbling like petty dwarves. It is beneath you. I will _not_ lose this family as I lost my brother.”

“This is the only family I have left too,” Tony says eventually, after a long silence, not looking at any of them. “This, and Pep…I was alone for a long time.”

Steve thinks about Peggy and how sad she had sounded when talking about Tony. If he gets a moment at this garden party, or maybe afterwards, he’s going to force them to talk to each other.

“All the more reason for us to be friends,” Thor admonishes. “This is exactly what HYDRA would want. We must not give it to them.”

“Listen,” Bruce says. “We won’t let Dr. Cho anywhere near us until we’re absolutely sure she’s no threat. We can have Jarvis check her background even more thoroughly, look for any hint of a connection to HYDRA, before we confirm with her. And Thor’s right. We need to stick together.”

“Besides,” Thor says, “I believe that if she truly were the enemy, she would have been much more eager to gain access to the Tower. She would have taken any opportunity. The fact that she has not done so immediately speaks in her favor, do you not think?”

Natasha nods, clearly appreciating Thor’s tactical mind. “That’s true.”

“And anyway, at least we know we’re not stuck here forever,” Clint says encouragingly. “In ten days, we have to go face a party full of murderous Nazis who want us all dead. So…silver lining, I guess?”

This has the desired effect of making Natasha laugh. Even Tony gives a weak grin.

“We done here?” Clint asks Bruce, who nods.

“I’ve sent my email with more details and reiterated the point about the time. Hopefully she’ll respond a bit more quickly this time.”

“Okay,” Clint says, and then he holds out his hand to Natasha. “C’mon. Let’s see if we can find some way of getting fresh air.”

They leave the lab hand in hand as Thor calls Bruce and Tony over to his workbench to examine something there; possibly just a distraction, but if it is, it’s a good one. Steve turns to Bucky.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this? What if it makes it worse?”

Bucky laughs. “It could hardly be worse though, could it?! It’s a chance, Steve. I’ll take any chance I can get.”

“I wish I could do something,” Steve says, frustrated. “I hate this, relying on someone we’ve never even met. Taking such a risk.”

“You just hate that you can’t punch something to make it better,” Bucky says.

“I feel…I feel _small_,” Steve says, and he knows that Bucky will get it, though he can’t quite bring himself to look at him. When he finally does raise his head, he sees a softness in Bucky’s expression that almost takes his breath away.

“I know, buddy,” Bucky says. “I’m sorry. But you’ve gotta let me do this. It’s what I want.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, suddenly desperately wanting this conversation to get less intense. He doesn’t want to think that he could lose Bucky again so soon after finding him.

“So,” Bucky says, forcing a grin onto his face that looks a little too wide. “Let’s go hit the gym and find something to punch. Take our minds off it?”

Actually, that_ does_ sound kind of appealing. “Sure thing, buddy. Lead the way.”

* * *

It’s another four days before Helen Cho responds to Bruce’s second email, during which time Steve doesn’t see anyone other than Bucky. They spend most of their time in bed, alternating between staring listlessly into space, endless circular conversations which stress them both out about the possible outcomes of Dr. Cho agreeing or not agreeing to Bruce’s plan, and having sex and not talking about it.

His phone, which was once so endlessly alive with stupid messages from his teammates, is resolutely silent.

He broods about the state of his team, feeling powerless to keep everything and everyone together.

“Maybe Loki was right,” he says to Bucky, staring at the ceiling at 3 am. “Maybe we were never going to work as a team.”

Bucky snorts. “You’re going to listen to _that_ guy? I wouldn’t even take fashion advice from him.”

“Well, he’s right, isn’t he?”

“Steve, don’t you remember how we all used to get back in the war? With the Howlies? Like the mission when we were stuck in that trench for five days?”

Steve thinks, remembering a cold hillside, a hidden HYDRA base, and endless arguments about whose turn it was to be on watch. The hadn’t exactly covered themselves in glory; by the end, nobody had been on speaking terms.

“You remember that?” Steve asks, and Bucky laughs.

“I remember enough to remember it was hell, yeah. That’s enough. People like us and the rest of the team aren’t _meant_ to be stuck in one place, Steve. It’s only natural that everyone’s getting kinda antsy. It’s not your fault.”

“But I’m meant to be the leader,” Steve says, despondently. “And I can’t stop everyone fighting.”

“Because you were meant to lead them in battle, dumbass, not to be everyone’s ma!” Bucky prods him in the side. “Anyway, whatever happens, you’ll get a chance to kick some ass at that party next week.”

“And you’ll be there too,” Steve says, wondering whether it’s himself or Bucky that he’s trying to convince.

“Sure I will, pal,” Bucky says, but it sounds automatic, and Steve wonders whether he’s given up hope.

Just then, Steve’s phone starts dinging with a flurry of messages, and both he and Bucky jump at the unexpected sound.

“Maybe she’s replied!” Steve says, grabbing for the phone.

“Or Stark’s finally decided he’s had enough of us,” Bucky mutters, but he cranes over Steve’s shoulder to read.

<_Helen Cho has replied and she says ‘yes!’ The timing’s going to be tight, though: she can only come next week on the day of the party. We should have a little time in between though, if it all goes to plan._>

Most of the other Avengers have already responded. Steve wonders why they’re all still awake.

He turns to look at Bucky.

“So? Looks like it’s going ahead!”

He tamps down on the anxiety that that won’t give them much time to check if Bucky’s okay before they all have to head out to the garden party. At least they can get it done at all. And if Tony and Bruce have faith in this Dr. Cho, then that counts for a lot; he has to believe that it’s enough.

Thor has sent a row of emojis, most of them nonsensical, and Tony has sent a video of himself chanting “Helen Cho! Helen Cho! Helen Cho!” like he’s at a baseball game, with a bemused Pepper in the background. Steve’s heart lifts a little.

Bucky grins. “There you go! You worry too much. You always have.”

He rolls over so that he’s on top of Steve, his hips moving lazily, and his lips slot into place against Steve’s as if by accident.

“We’ll get it done,” he murmurs into Steve’s mouth, “And then I…then _we_ can go anywhere we want.”

Steve sighs, powerless to resist, and lets his phone, which is still pinging, fall to the floor, wanting to capitalize on their shared good mood. He just hopes to God that this is going to work.

* * *

Tony’s been waiting for Dr. Cho’s arrival like a kid for Christmas morning all week. He’d printed out copies of all of her published papers and left them around the penthouse for everyone to read, even though Steve suspects that Bruce has been the only one to actually read them.

He wonders whether the countdown to Dr. Cho is half-intended to take the emphasis off the preparations for the garden party. It’s been almost impossible to get into the gym; there’s always someone in there training. He and Bucky have managed a couple of sessions, but that’s about it. Even Pepper’s been spotted in there, though she was very secretive about why. Somehow, Steve suspects it’s more than just to make up for missing her spinning classes.

It feels like they’ve been waiting for ages, and then suddenly the day is here almost before Steve even realizes it. On the morning of the party, Steve and Bucky both wake early, but neither of them wants to discuss what’s about to happen. There’s a tense feeling between them, like time’s running out somehow, though Steve has no idea where it’s come from. After hours of almost complete silence, Jarvis interrupts just as they’re finishing breakfast in the kitchen.

“Excuse me, Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes,” comes that even voice from the ceiling that Steve has finally gotten used to. “Dr. Cho has arrived and is currently setting up in the workshop with Sir.”

He can see Bucky tensing, the empty plates grasped in his hands on his way to the sink.

“I guess this is it,” Steve says, feeling stupid. It’s not just this morning that’s been awkward: they haven’t talked about the procedure at all, even though the prospect of it has been hanging over them for days now. Steve just hasn’t had the words, and Bucky hasn’t brought it up either. Now he stands by the sink with his shoulders hunched, his hands flat on the marble countertop.

“I guess so,” he says, and his voice sounds hollow.

Steve gathers the condiments from the table and puts them into the fridge. Bucky doesn’t move from the sink, his head bowed and his hair covering his face. Steve lays a hand on his shoulder and feels the muscles moving under the cotton of his shirt.

“We should get going.”

Bucky nods and straightens up, his face carefully blank, almost as devoid of expression as it was the first time Steve saw him in this century. He wants to say something, anything, to wipe that look off Bucky’s face, but the moment passes in silence and Bucky moves past him to walk towards the elevator doors, which open to receive them.

They enter the lab and everything seems to be in full swing. Tony and Bruce are already there and a small, dark-haired woman in a lab coat is standing by Tony’s work-station and manipulating the screen. Her voice is only slightly accented as she speaks. They both keep throwing awe-struck expressions her way, like they’re in the presence of a movie star, and Steve gets the impression that she’s only tolerating it because it amuses her so much.

“The cradle heals wounds by grafting a simulacrum of organic tissue onto the patient and having it bond to the patient’s cells, and thus it can also be used to create synthetic tissue, which we will not be doing today,” Dr. Cho explains while her hands move through the presentation that’s up on the projected screens.

Tony is looking intently at the graphs while Bruce makes notes. Steve makes his way to the edge of the room, finding an empty bit of wall to lean on and watch. He feels Bucky follow, settling beside Steve with a clear view of the screens.

“I understand there’s something of a time pressure, so I’ve used the imaging done on Sergeant Barnes’s brain to plot out the areas with the most damage and Jarvis has been able to locate the neurons that are the most likely causes of the triggers.”

She flips to another image of a brain, which Steve assumes is Bucky’s. Several locations light up and dim as Dr. Cho scrolls through the set-up. “Once we’ve repaired the damaged tissue and established the neural pathways, the words should no longer have any effect.”

She looks around suddenly. “Where is Sergeant Barnes? I still need to go over the full details of the procedure with him before we begin.”

Steve looks to his left, ready to introduce Bucky, but there’s no one there. Bucky is gone.

“Let me go and find him,” he offers, pushing away from the wall he was leaning on. Bucky can’t have gotten that far, or left the building. There’s an emergency staircase leading to the roof just off the corridor outside the lab, and that’s where Steve goes. If he were Bucky right now, he’d want some fresh air.

He doesn’t ask Jarvis as he makes his way to the corridor and into the staircase. He doesn’t want Bucky to feel watched or hunted. It’s just going to be Steve, finding his friend the old-fashioned way. Plus, if he doesn’t make too much of a big deal about it, he can enjoy his first taste of fresh air in a couple of weeks.

When Steve gets up on the roof garden, he hears voices coming from behind one of the bigger shrubs. He creeps closer and sees Bucky’s boots; there’s also another person, their feet not too far from Bucky’s, but Steve can’t see who it is. He stays low, unable to see most of their bodies, but their quiet voices carry enough.

“Do you think I didn’t recognize you, pretending to be that vase?” Bucky’s saying. “It was totally out of place in the lab.”

There’s a pause, and then Loki says, “I hadn’t appreciated that you might notice.”

He sounds oddly chastised.

“You hang around the Met with Steve for years and develop an unhealthy fixation with naked guys on Greek vases, you’ll notice them too,” Bucky says sternly, and Steve smiles; he didn’t think Bucky had remembered that.

“Plus, Pepper would never. At least not in public. And it felt like you. Just like that extra chair in the living room yesterday felt like you too. That’s why nobody wanted to sit on it.”

“‘Felt like me’?” Loki says. “I wouldn’t have thought a mortal like yourself could sense magic.”

“Don’t know if it was magic,” Bucky says. “I just know you, by now. Once you haven’t always been yourself, you recognize it in other people too.”

Loki pauses for a moment, then says slowly, “I had not thought that you would have been able to see_ that_ either.”

“Well, I’m very observant,” Bucky says, and Steve can almost hear the shrug in his voice.

“Yes, you certainly are. Of some things, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Captain,” Loki says succinctly, and Bucky sighs.

Steve freezes. What does Loki mean?

“He’s my friend.” Bucky’s voice is stubborn. “I owe him everything.”

“And?” Loki says.

“And I can never repay him.”

_“And_?” Loki says, the frustration evident in his voice.

Bucky pauses, takes a deep breath, and says, “And I’m in love with him.”

Steve’s own breathing suddenly sounds way too loud in his own ears. He can’t just have heard right, can he? What did Bucky just say?

“I’ve always loved him. I remember it now,” Bucky says, sounding more confident in it. “He doesn’t feel the same way.”

Somehow, even though Steve’s rooted to the spot, the conversation is still going on around him. Because Bucky apparently loves him, always has, and sure, Steve loves him too, like a friend, like a brother, like…like someone who’d never be enough as anything else.

Loki snorts. “I swear, I didn’t think it was possible to find beings of a duller wit than Thor, and yet here we are, a whole planet full of them, with you two at the top of the idiot pile. What is it that you do together, if it is not making love?”

Bucky gives a short, humorless laugh. “It’s just sex, there’s nothing more. He doesn’t want more. I don’t think he ever would.”

“I can’t believe I’ve spent weeks disguising myself as furniture for _this_. There are so many better ways I could be spending my time than playing matchmaker to dunderheaded mortals. Why do you continue with this, when it hurts you so much?”

“Because it’s all I’ll ever have of him!” Bucky says, sounding closer to losing his composure. “And I’m too selfish to let it go. Or I have been.”

Steve’s heart, recently so large and painful that it had felt like it was going to burst out of his chest, suddenly constricts. Because he _can’t_ give Bucky what he wants. And besides, he’s not in love with him, is he?

He is, isn’t he?

Oh fuck, he _absolutely _is.

“And you don’t want to give the good Captain a little time to catch up?” Loki says, his voice sounding pointed. “That’s why you’re going to leave as soon as the procedure is done?”

“What?” Bucky says, sounding more wrong-footed by this than by anything else. “How did you –?”

“NO!” Steve shouts, and then immediately feels furious with himself as both Loki and Bucky turn in his direction.

“Steve?” Bucky says, after a moment of supremely awkward silence.

As it doesn’t seem to be worth denying it, Steve gets slowly to his feet and steps out into full view.

“Oh my goodness what have we here the Captain behind the shrubbery,” Loki says in an emotionless monotone.

“Dr. Cho sent me to find you,” Steve says, ignoring Loki. “Bucky, you can’t –”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky says, not looking at him. “You –, you heard my reasons already. Let’s just get it done.”

He strides past Steve and goes to call the elevator, while Loki makes a loud tutting sound.

“Honestly, I’ve encountered _mountain trolls_ that are more intelligent than the pair of you…. Well, hurry up, Captain! Don’t let him get away.”

Steve runs after Bucky, getting into the elevator just as the doors slide shut. Bucky still won’t look at him and Steve desperately feels like he’s running out of time.

He’s seen the tech and the images in the lab set up for Bucky, they’d both seen them, and it feels strangely final, like afterwards Bucky could just walk out the door. No more code words, no more HYDRA control. He’ll be free, and from what he’d been saying to Loki, he doesn’t think that Steve wants him to stay, that he’s given Bucky any reasons to.

Before he can voice any of it, force any of those words past his lips, the elevator doors slide open and the lab is in front of them. He can see Tony and Dr. Cho and Bruce still standing by the computers, like they haven’t moved at all. The other Avengers evidently arrived in the lab while Steve was gone: they all turn to look at them enter, but nobody says anything. Maybe they don’t know what to say. Maybe they just wanted to kill time before the party and didn’t want to do so alone.

Bucky walks out without a word, like he’s walking up to meet a firing squad.

“Excellent,” Dr. Cho says, stepping away from the computer screens. “Right this way, Sergeant Barnes.”

She leads Bucky to a more private area of the lab and opens up another screen in the air. Steve can’t really see what she’s covering as she begins to quietly speak with Bucky.

He stands there waiting as Bruce and Tony busy themselves on the other side of the lab. He catches a sympathetic glance and a small smile from Natasha, but she drops her head again after a moment. Thor opens his mouth and seems about to say something, but then he closes it again. The silence feels almost oppressive, and in the quiet, he can’t help but hear Bucky’s words in his head again.

_“I’ve always loved him, I remember it now. He doesn’t feel the same way.”_

He’d been so certain, so steady in his words to Loki, like it was an insurmountable fact. Steve’s never been good at putting feelings into words, at expressing anything besides anger and fury. He’s just always thought that Bucky would know, would have read all the things he feels in the space between them. He wonders now about all those years, if all those certainties weren’t so certain for Bucky after all.

A movement catches his eye from the other side of the room. Both Dr. Cho and Bucky have gotten up from the screen and are walking towards the cradle set-up. Dr. Cho begins unraveling all the wiring and flipping switches, and the apparatus begins to slowly hum as the lights blink on. Stiffly, Bucky lies back on the bed as Dr. Cho begins to place electrodes all around his head and the back of his neck.

“It’s going to feel strange,” she says as she works. “But it shouldn’t hurt.”

Bucky just nods, his face turned towards the ceiling. Steve can’t see his expression from where he’s standing, only his clenched fists and the tense way he’s holding his body on the table.

After this, everything will change, Steve thinks. Everything will be different, and he can’t let it happen, not yet, not until Bucky knows. “Wait, wait, wait,” he says moving towards the set-up, towards Bucky. “Please wait.”

Cho looks up at him questioningly, but there must be something in his expression that makes her nod and move to the computers, turning her back to them to give Steve at least a small sense of privacy. He kneels down by the bed, face to face with Bucky, who turns to look at him. His face is unreadable still, frozen like stone.

“I heard what you said up there on the roof,” Steve whispers, the words catching in his throat, “And it’s not true.”

“Steve, don’t….” Bucky reaches for him, sounding pained, his hands coming to grasp Steve’s, and Steve just shakes his head.

“It’s not, Bucky. And maybe I haven’t been the best at showing –, at telling you, I know that.”

“What are you saying?”

Steve wills himself to hear a cautious hope in Bucky’s tone, wills it to be there. He breathes and forces the words out.

“I’m saying I do, Buck, I do. So much.”

Bucky smiles, and it’s gentle and kind. “Still can’t say it, huh?”

Steve squeezes his eyes closed and brings Bucky’s hand to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, each of his fingers in turn. As he looks up, he says it.

“I love you, Buck. I have for a really long time.” He can see Bucky’s eyes starting to tear up. “I just didn’t have the words for it.”

Bucky squeezes down on his hand, their fingers entwining. “You for real, Rogers?” he asks, and Steve laughs, because otherwise he might cry.

“Yeah, Barnes, I’m for real.”

Bucky smiles then, wide and happy, making the dimples on his cheeks show. Steve can’t help but reach over and kiss each one with a quick brush of his lips.

“And you’ll stay?” Steve feels the need to ask, to make sure.

Bucky smiles gently. “Yeah, Steve. I’m not going anywhere.”

He turns to look at Dr. Cho on his right. “Let’s get this thing done, then,” Bucky says, with another squeeze of Steve’s fingers.

Steve makes himself get up from his crouch and motions Dr. Cho to come back to the machinery. “Is it okay if I stay here?”

She looks at him for a moment, considering, and then nods. “Of course, Captain Rogers, just please don’t touch any of the wiring during the procedure.”

Dr. Cho repeats her set-up from before and the lights flicker on. Bucky tenses like he’s expecting pain and the machine starts to properly hum, a low-level sound that seems to almost vibrate in Steve’s bones. Steve squeezes his hand, ready to give whatever Bucky needs from him.

He waits what must only be seconds, but feels like hours, and then Bucky blinks up at Steve, his eyes wide in surprise as his body starts to slowly relax a fraction.

“It doesn’t –” he says, going slightly cross-eyed for a second. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Before Steve can reply, Dr. Cho speaks up from where she’s leaning over the computer screens. “You might have difficulty in focusing your eyes as we repair this section.”

Bucky just blinks, his face twisting adorably and his hand still clasped in Steve’s.

Surprisingly, the next hour is actually quite boring. Dr. Cho calls out different symptoms that Bucky might experience, such as strange tastes or feeling hot in one part of his body or another, but otherwise, the machine just hums and blinks. Steve still doesn’t let go of his hand, and eventually the machine stops. The lights dim and the constant hum dies down.

“It’s done,” Dr. Cho says from the computers.

She walks over and helps Bucky get the electrodes off his head and untangled from his hair. “Now we just have to test it.” She turns towards Tony. “You said that you had the recording?”

Tony nods, looking grim. “Jarvis, cue the awful dulcet tones of a Nazi asshole, why don’t you?”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis says, and suddenly, Steve hears Zola’s voice from the bunker fill the room.

“Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый….”

Bucky flinches, his eyes closing. Steve still doesn’t let go of his hands, squeezing down. No matter what happens, he’s going to stay here; he wants to be the first thing Bucky sees no matter what the outcome is.

“Рассвет. Печь. Девять…,” the recording of Zola’s voice continues. “Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину….”

“I don’t –” Bucky mutters, shaking his head, his eyes still closed. “I don’t feel anything.”

He looks up at Steve, and a smile starts to break out on his face. “I don’t feel anything!” he says with a sudden, wild laugh, like he can’t really believe it.

Steve is smiling too, so hard he feels it in his cheeks, and he can’t stop himself from leaning down and kissing Bucky right on the lips in the middle of Tony’s lab while choruses of “Finally!” and “I knew it!” and “You owe me twenty, Barton!” ring out behind them.

Bucky laughs and laughs into his mouth and it’s perfect.

Just so _perfect_.


	11. Alpha Mike Foxtrot

**Alpha Mike Foxtrot**

(U.S. Army) ‘Adios Mother Fucker.’ When used in combat situations, it generally means that the person on the other end of the barrel is being wished a not-so-kind farewell (NATO phonetic alphabet).

Tony, being Tony, gives them maybe five seconds before breaking in. “Okay, now that we’ve got that touching, not-at-all-excruciating-to-wait-for event out of the way, we need to haul ass. We’ve got a party to get to.”

Steve starts. The garden party! Shit! How could he have forgotten about that? He blinks, and then sees Tony watching him with a wry expression.

“I know, Cap, young love is pretty special and all, but we’ve got to get going. Parties to get to, SHIELD founders to protect, evil Nazi’s asses to kick, you know how it is. Go get ready. You too,” he says to the room at large. “Check your closets!”

“What for, monsters?” Clint grouses, and Tony sighs.

“_No_, for the outfits I let Pepper choose for you all as an early Christmas present. Wheels up in fifteen!”

“Fifteen minutes?!” Thor says, sounding surprised. “Never mind. I shall attend to my hair on the way.”

“C’mon,” Bucky says, taking Steve by the hand. “Let’s go get dolled up.”

“No fooling around, there’s no time!” Tony calls after them, and Steve sticks his middle finger up at him as they leave.

Once they get into their room, Bucky opens the closet, revealing two tuxes that definitely weren’t there a few days ago.

“Tuxes?” Steve says. “How are we gonna fight in those?”

“Pretty tacky for a garden party, too,” Bucky says. “Fucking Nazi dress codes. No class at all.” He pulls one out and examines it critically, feeling the material. “This isn’t normal fabric, though. I think it’s been reinforced. A few places to conceal weapons too, nice.” He checks the size and then strips, ignoring Steve’s sharp intake of breath as his shirt hits the floor, and pulls on the dress shirt and pants.

“Move it, Rogers,” he says, when he sees that Steve’s still looking at him. “You can stare later.”

Steve does as he’s told, hoping very much that he’s going to get a chance to get Bucky _out_ of these clothes in a few hours’ time. Once he’s dressed, he looks Bucky up and down and whistles.

“Looking good,” he says. “I can see that Pepper was definitely involved in this.”

“Yeah, Stark wouldn’t know subtle if it kicked him in the ass,” Bucky agrees. “You don’t look too bad yourself.” He takes a step closer. “Help you with your tie?”

Steve swallows. How can it be this sexy getting dressed when they’ve already done so much more? But somehow, Bucky’s expression of concentration, his teasing touches, and the closeness of his face to Steve’s as he nimbly gets the tie into place is getting him a little hard already.

“You can move really easily in this,” Bucky murmurs, shifting his stance and sliding his hands down Steve’s shoulders and arms. “Comfortable, flexible…Stark knew what he was doing. How about that?”

“Stop it,” Steve says as Bucky steps up on his tiptoes to brush his lips against Steve’s.

“You’re sure?” he teases with a smile.

“Well, no,” Steve admits, but at that point, Jarvis’s voice comes over the speakers.

“Sir has asked me to remind you that you have five minutes left before you need to leave.”

“Five minutes?” Bucky asks, eyebrow raised, and Steve snorts.

“Later. Come on, let’s get some shoes.”

The shoes trouble Steve slightly, because he’s used to fighting with more protection for his feet, but they’re sturdy enough and they’ll have to do. He’s going to feel a little dumb carrying his shield, but no way is he leaving it behind. Bucky loads all the hidden pockets in his jacket with various weapons, some of which Steve didn’t even know he had, and then they dash for the elevator.

They’re the last to arrive, and Tony obnoxiously taps his watch.

“We had thirty seconds left,” Bucky remarks as they walk up. “Quit whining.”

Steve looks at all the other Avengers, assembled and ready to go, plus Pepper. All the other guys are wearing suits that look similar to Steve and Bucky’s, even Thor, which somehow looks wrong on him. Natasha and Pepper are both wearing long dresses: Pepper’s is gold and accessorized with big blue and gold bracelets on both wrists, while Natasha’s is long-sleeved, deep navy, and hugs every curve of her body. Tony is carrying a briefcase and Thor has Mjolnir slung over his shoulder; Steve can’t see if Clint’s carrying a bow, but he must have one, somewhere. Maybe his tux has a bow-shaped secret pocket.

Tony hands out comm devices to all of them to put into their ears, even giving one to Pepper. Once everyone has them in place, even Steve finds it hard to see them, and he knows what to look for.

“Let’s go, then,” he says. “There’s a jet on the landing pad on the roof.”

They all file up into the elevator and up to the roof garden. Steve sees Natasha inhaling deeply as the doors open and they all step out. The wind whips up her hair and Steve can see Clint reaching out to hold her hand as they walk up the ramp and into the jet.

Clint and Natasha get into the cockpit and start the take-off preparations, while everyone else takes a seat at the sides of the plane: Bruce, Pepper, and Tony cluster together on one side, while Steve, Bucky, and Thor take the other. Thor does indeed braid his hair during the flight, making an elaborate style that looks impossible to Steve’s untrained eyes. When he offers to do the same for Bucky, Bucky readily agrees, and Steve has to admit that the result suits him.

“Hey Tony, where are we going to land?” Clint calls from the cockpit after what seems like no time at all. “We’re about ten minutes out of D.C.”

“Just land on one of the helipads in the Triskelion,” Tony advises. “The party’s in the Triskelion gardens, so it might be good to have the Quinjet nearby if it all goes south.”

“Roger,” Clint says, as Bucky mutters, “Or bad if we blow the whole building up.”

“I do not think that it will come to that!” Thor says bracingly. “At least, I hope that it will not.”

Once Clint has landed, they take a moment to check that the comms are working, and then take an elevator downstairs. Steve shudders, though he can’t explain why. Bucky holds his hand soothingly.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. “Whatever happens. We’ll be okay.”

Steve nods.

“Stick together once we get there,” he tells the others. “Don’t let them split us up, if we can help it. Stay in touch, if we can’t.”

When they arrive at the garden, the party is strangely subdued. There’s an archway covered with garish balloons and a large banner that says ‘CELEBARTING AGNET CRATER,’ which makes Steve wonder whether Rumlow had something to do with it, but that’s the extent of the decorations. By the archway is a bar counter bearing some cheap-looking drinks, and people have gathered in clusters around small tables and chairs dotted about the garden.

There are fewer people than Steve was expecting, maybe around fifty, which doesn’t seem that much for all of SHIELD, and there’s no sign of several people he would have expected, such as Fury or Maria Hill. There’s a charged feeling in the air, like something’s not quite right; the only person whom he knows he can definitely trust is Peggy, who’s holding a cane and talking to Alexander Pierce, looking rather tetchy. All of the other people present are clearly also armed, looking strangely sweaty and uncomfortable in the muggy, late-summer D.C. heat.

“Something’s not right here,” Steve mutters under his breath as they go to get drinks and then group around one of the rickety-looking plastic tables.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” Clint says sarcastically, taking a big gulp from the glass in his hand and then shuddering. “Ugh, these drinks are garbage even for SHIELD’s internal party budget.”

“Do you guys see anyone here who’s not HYDRA, apart from Director Carter?” Bruce asks.

“Nope,” Tony says. “And I’m pretty familiar with them all now, after studying the files for weeks.”

“So it’s a setup?”

“Yeah, it’s a setup.”

“_It’s a trap_,” Bucky mutters, and Clint sniggers.

“I have taught you well, my young padawan.”

“Cut it out,” Natasha snaps. “Focus.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Bruce says.

“Get Peggy out of here, kick some ass, and go home?” Steve suggests.

“Good plan – Wait, who’s _that_?” Natasha says, interrupting herself.

Tony looks around wildly. “Where?”

Natasha rolls her eyes, poking him in the side. “Don’t make it obvious that you’re looking!”

Steve chances a look in the direction she’s subtly indicating with one hand. Standing alone and holding a champagne flute is a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a floor-length gown that looks like it’s made of deep green velvet. It’s strapless and tight-fitting with a long train. Around her shoulders is a cape made out of what looks like several foxes, and she’s also wearing an enormous emerald necklace around her neck. Steve thinks one of the fox heads winks at him, but it could just be a trick of the light.

There’s a small cluster of HYDRA guys looking at her too and nudging each other. She’s alternating between regarding them with complete disdain and pretending they’re not there as she sips her drink.

“Does anyone know who that is?” Steve asks. He’s not sure how much of a threat someone that overdressed could pose, but he knows not to underestimate anyone these days; he’s fairly confident Natasha could do some serious damage in an outfit like that.

“Never seen her before, either in person or in the files,” Natasha says. “She’s not a SHIELD regular. Which means she’s probably very dangerous.”

As they watch while trying to pretend not to watch, they see Rumlow approach the woman with two glasses in his hands and get rejected almost instantly with a sneer and a condescending handwave instructing him to leave.

“Kinda fun watching Rumlow strike out, though,” Clint says, and Natasha grins.

At this point, Peggy looks over at them. Her expression clears when she sees Steve, and she walks over to join them, swiftly followed by Pierce. There’s no time to make any plans, so instead, Steve steps a little away from the group, hoping to give the other Avengers time to come up with a way to get rid of Pierce so they can get Peggy to safety. Natasha gets the hint and starts to slowly guide the group away from Steve to put further distance between them.

Bucky comes with Steve, though; he’s still holding his hand, almost defiantly, and Steve is _so_ proud of him, standing firm in the face of the man who caused him so much pain and suffering. Pierce looks from Steve and Bucky to their joined hands and back again, and even with his braided hair, there can be no mistaking Bucky to anyone who knows him. The metal arm isn’t exactly subtle, and Bucky’s made no effort to hide it.

“Who’s this?” Pierce asks pleasantly, his face maddeningly blank, like he genuinely doesn’t know who Bucky is. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

_You know full well, you lying sack of shit_, Steve thinks, but instead, he says, “This is my boyfriend, Bucky,” trying his best to match Pierce’s tone of polite interest.

“Bucky?” Peggy says, confused. “But I thought…. Did I forget? I thought he died.”

“So did I,” Steve says, trying to keep his voice steady and hoping Peggy isn’t going to get upset. “But it turns out I was wrong.”

“Oh,” says Peggy, looking reassured. “Well. You’ll have to tell me the whole story.” She beams at him. “I’m so glad you’ve arrived, I barely know anyone here. I thought my niece would be here by now, or Nick, but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of them. Has Fury come with you?”

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Pierce says, with a smile that sends a shiver down Steve’s spine. “Perhaps he’s just been a little delayed. Bad traffic. You know how it is downtown.”

“Hmph,” Peggy says.

The tone of Pierce’s voice makes Steve worry. He gives Bucky’s hand a gentle squeeze, and Bucky understands, letting go of him and slipping off to join the others. Pierce looks like he wants to say something, but he clearly can’t in front of Peggy.

Peggy, on the other hand, firmly turns her back on Pierce, clearly hoping to shut him out of the conversation, but he still hovers at her shoulder. Steve tries to think of something to talk about that’s neutral to buy the others some time.

“Do you know who that lady is over there?” Steve asks, pointing at the mysterious woman.

Peggy looks and wrinkles her nose.

“No,” she says. “And that’s a rather…_unusual_ outfit for a garden party.”

Steve can’t help but grin at her tone, which is just like the old Peggy. Just then, Thor arrives, loud and exuberant.

“Mr. Director Pierce!” he says loudly, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well met! What a joy it is to see you again. A party in a garden! Such a thing!” He gives a convincingly baffled-sounding laugh. “We would never do anything like this on Asgard. Let us fetch a drink, for I am greatly parched!”

Steve grins to himself, recognizing what Natasha and Thor have been referring to between themselves as the ‘Asgardian tourist protocol’ working at full strength. Affecting a bumbling joviality, Thor manages to draw Pierce away from Peggy and Steve and steer him towards the awful drinks. Steve has never considered before that any of Thor’s apparent cluelessness might have been an act, but now he’s wondering whether any of those times he’d seemed not to understand things had been genuine or not.

“That’s Thor,” he says needlessly, and Peggy laughs.

“You always did like friends who were larger than life, Steve.” She looks over to Steve’s remaining teammates, who by this stage are quite some distance away. “Is that…?”

Steve follows her gaze. “Tony? Yes.”

“I’ve seen him in the papers, of course,” she says, almost to herself. “But not in person…. It’s been so long.”

And before Steve can say anything else, she’s walking across the grass, making her way determinedly towards Tony. Steve can only follow in her wake.

“Anthony Edward Stark!” she says, an accusatory tone in her voice, as she shakes her cane at him.

Tony freezes in his tracks, looking wildly from side to side, because of all the attacks they’d planned for, a dressing-down from a nonagenarian had _not_ been on anyone’s list. He looks sideways at Pepper, who mercilessly takes half a step away from him.

Once it becomes clear that nobody’s going to save him, Tony says, “Yes?”

“There’s something I need to say to you.”

Steve can see this is gearing up to be an important conversation, and much as he wants them to reconcile, this is _absolutely the worst time_ for this to happen. He glances over to Thor and Pierce, and he can see Thor’s stalling admirably, but they’re running out of time.

“Peggy, I’m not sure this is the best –” Steve begins, but Peggy interrupts him.

“Be quiet, Steve! I’m old, I could die any day, and I am _not_ passing up this chance.” She takes a breath and steadies herself on her cane. “Tony, I’m sorry.”

Tony looks at her and frowns.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Peggy says, her voice softer. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Tony goggles at her.

“_You’re_ sorry? _I’m_ the one who acted like a jackass! You were trying to contact me for months after I said…what I said and I just ignored you.”

Peggy sighs.

“Well, I _was_ trying to offer you an out, dear, but yes, now that you mention it, you _were _something of a jackass.”

Clint sniggers, and Natasha shushes him. Steve wishes he could risk moving away from Peggy to let her continue this conversation with Tony in private, as it doesn’t feel like one he should be listening to, but he doesn’t dare leave her unprotected.

“But I saw everything that happened to you, before Afghanistan, and after, and I shouldn’t have walked away. I should have kept trying.” Peggy’s voice is wavering, and she pauses to sniff. “I should –”

“_There_ you are,” says Alexander Pierce, appearing out of nowhere, a frustrated-looking Thor hot on his heels. “We mustn’t let you get distracted. Not at your own –”

Pierce suddenly breaks off with a gasp of pain; Peggy has whacked him in the shin with her cane. He gapes at her like he can’t quite believe she’s done it. Steve tenses, but Peggy bristles with fury.

“Do you _mind?_” she says. “I’m _trying_ to have a heart-to-heart with my godson for the first time in years and I do _not_ want to be interrupted for any of your pathetic small talk at this ridiculous excuse for a party. I’d have had more fun at my weekly crossword club. At least the vocabulary they use there is interesting. And spelled correctly!”

Pierce’s expression has solidified from shock into something cold and hard; he looks at Peggy with complete contempt, as though she’s something he doesn’t even recognize as human. Then, slowly, menacingly, he steps closer to her and lowers his head so that he’s looking her right in the eyes.

“Well, it’s nice to know what you think of us, _Agent_ Carter.”

Peggy holds his gaze, unfazed, and suddenly, moving faster than Steve would have expected, Pierce seizes her roughly by the throat and points a gun in her face.

“No!” Steve shouts.

“Careful, Steve,” Natasha hisses next to him, and Steve doesn’t want to be careful, he wants to hurt Pierce, because Peggy’s breath is a gurgle, and she’s so frail, so fragile, and if he could just get to his shield quick enough, he could…. Beside him, Tony gasps and makes a twitching movement as though he wants to start forward, but he holds himself back, and the Avengers wait as one to see what Pierce will do next.

In the silence, Tony’s phone rings, and he quickly rejects the call.

“Listen to me,” Pierce says, and his voice is quiet, but it carries. “I have worked too hard and for too long for you to ruin this for me now. Your era is over, _Agent_ Carter. The SHIELD you worked for was rotten from its inception. We made sure of that. From the very beginning, you were easily corrupted. Swayed by your powerful friends. Duped by your superior enemies. Betrayed by your former allies. You invited us in and you never even saw what you were doing.”

Tony’s phone rings again, and he swears under his breath, once more rejecting the call.

Peggy’s face is impassive, and Steve can see she’s exerting all her efforts to keep breathing and stay on her feet. He wants to do something, anything, to stop feeling so powerless, but he daren’t risk anything that might cause Pierce to hurt Peggy. Anything he could do, Pierce would be faster.

“SHIELD is finished. A shell, hiding the true power in its core. My agents,” he gestures to the others at the party, who have come to hear him speak, gazing at him with a mixture of fear and adulation, keeping the Avengers surrounded. “My eyes and my ears, guiding the way, keeping the balance, clearing the path. And soon, we will do much more than that.”

Tony’s phone rings for the third time, and he makes an exasperated sound.

“Guess I’d better take this,” he says. “You’ll let me know if you’re about to say something interesting, yeah?”

“_Tony_,” Pepper hisses, but both Tony and Pierce ignore her; Tony steps off to the side and says, “Yeah, hi, not really a good time,” into his phone, while Pierce continues speaking.

“I will bring order to the lives of seven billion people on this planet, by the mere sacrifice of twenty million.”

While everyone processes this, Tony’s voice, which is never quiet even at the best of times, carries.

“Fury? What? Where are you?”

_Stall him, stall him_, Steve thinks desperately, wanting to give Tony more time to find out whatever the hell Fury’s doing_. _“What do you mean?” he asks, as Natasha says, “Project Insight.”

“Clever girl,” Pierce says condescendingly, and Natasha bristles. “I see Zola must have given you something before he destroyed himself. Yes. We will eliminate the threats to humanity before they make a single move, and we will start –” he pauses dramatically “– with you.”

There’s a moment of silence, during which Pierce pauses for effect again; the guy really seems to think he’s putting on a show. Then Steve hears Tony say, “Seriously?!” and then, “Okay, okay. I’ll get someone on it.” A moment later, he rejoins the group.

“You done with your monologue there, sport?” he asks Pierce, who splutters, clearly annoyed that his big moment has been ruined.

“What’s happening?” Steve asks.

“It’s Fury,” Tony says, his voice sounding exaggeratedly casual. “You’ll never believe it, it’s the darndest thing, but he’s just had a car accident near Dupont Circle. Looks like someone tried to kill him.” He looks around the group, an almost comical expression of surprise on his face. “Imagine that, boys and girls.”

Steve sees Peggy roll her eyes, and even this small movement seems to cost her; her skin is getting increasingly pale.

“So can you _wrap this up_, please? Because we probably need to go get him.”

“I shall go to find Fury,” Thor says. “I will be more than a match for whatever they have thrown at him, and I do not think you will suffer greatly without me here. I will return when he is secure.”

“That’s awfully confident of you,” Pierce says, as Thor spins Mjolnir and takes off in a whirl of leaves and burnt grass. “What makes you think you can be any match for us? It’s disappointing to have to dispose of you all, particularly you, Captain, after we thought you were one of us, but I’m sure it will be no great loss.”

Steve still has no idea why Pierce would ever think that he’d be part of HYDRA, but before he has a chance to say so, Pierce carries on. “How tragic it is that you chose to bring the agent of your own destruction here so willingly,” he demurs, turning towards Bucky.

“Hello again, ‘Bucky,’” he says, with venom, and Steve can all but hear the air quotes around the name.

Bucky turns to look at him, shoulders tense, and Steve can see his metal fist tightening, the plates in his fingers shifting. “Fuck. You,” he growls at Pierce.

“Now, now,” Pierce tuts, almost carelessly. “That’s no way for the fist of HYDRA to speak to its handler. But don’t you worry, we’ll have you wiped and back to baseline in no time. Did you really think that we didn’t leave a back door for ourselves? No musical overtunes available here.”

Pierce takes a few steps towards them, dragging Peggy with him, and Bucky stands his ground. Steve wants nothing more than to step in front of him, to be that shield again, but he knows this is something Bucky has to do on his own.

“Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый. Рассвет. Печь. Девять.” The words sound strangely alien coming out of Pierce’s mouth, even as he must have said them hundreds of times before in that bank vault.

“Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Товарный вагон,” Pierce finishes with a triumphant smile, and with a rough flick of his arm, he throws Peggy aside. She lands on the grass in a painful-looking heap.

“Kill her. _Now_,” he orders, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s. The long silence hangs between them, no one in the crowd moving a muscle, everyone waiting with bated breath.

“I am _not_ ready to comply,” Bucky growls, and he launches himself at Pierce at the same time as Steve rushes to cover Peggy.

Bucky gets his hand around Pierce’s throat before any of the HYDRA agents can move, lifting him off the ground, the servos whirring with the weight. Pierce struggles in his grip, his hands scrambling over the sleek metal, trying to grab something, anything. Trying to gain any advantage he can, but there’s nothing to be had. The Winter Soldier is too good. Steve can see Pierce’s face starting to purple as Bucky’s grip tightens.

“I’ll show you a gift to mankind, asshole.”

Bucky flips Pierce in mid-air, like he’s a side of beef, and slams him to the ground with a heavy thud and a snap that Steve recognizes as the sound of bones breaking. Pierce’s hands and feet flop around like a rag-doll’s and for a moment, everything is dead silent.

“Okay, Aunt Peggy, time to go,” Tony says, breaking the silence. “Deploy!”

“What?” Peggy says, still staring at Pierce lying on the ground, but the last word wasn’t intended for her; Tony is holding out his arms and legs, which looks incredibly ridiculous for about five seconds, and then something red and gold is zooming towards him and Steve gets it; it’s the Iron Man suit, which encases Tony almost instantly.

“Head’s up, Pep!” Tony yells, and seconds later, Pepper is encased in blue and gold armor of her own and looking just as ready for battle.

“His n’ hers, Stark, seriously?” Clint says.

“Milady,” Tony says, ignoring him and holding out his arms to Peggy.

“Oh, _really_,” Peggy scoffs, but she accepts readily enough as Tony picks her up bridal-style.

“Now, don’t leave all the fun until I get back,” he says, and he shoots off to get Peggy to safety.

During the commotion around Peggy, the remnants of HYDRA have been looking nervously from Pierce’s body to the Avengers and back again, clearly unsure what to do next. Seeming to sense a power vacuum, Rumlow steps over to Pierce’s body, where he bends to rummage through his jacket before extracting something from an inside pocket that’s too small for Steve to see clearly. Then he gets back to his feet and looks at them all.

“Well, well, well…. No Stark and no Thor,” he says, an evil grin on his face, while stepping over Pierce’s body without looking down. “I guess that leaves me in charge then. Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA!” he shouts, and his words are echoed by the men surrounding them.

“I hope for your sake the other head has a brain in it,” Clint yells at him.

“And,” Rumlow continues, ignoring Clint and holding up whatever it was that he took from Pierce, which appears to be a small electronic device of some kind, “Let’s just say we’ve got an ace up our sleeve. A bit of insight, if you will.”

He keys a code into the device with quick fingers and as soon as he’s finished, a grinding of metal and a rush of water starts behind Steve. He turns around and sees the waters churning and sloshing and, he can’t quite believe his eyes, _draining_.

The metallic grinding turns out to be a set of some kind of launchpads, which start to appear from beneath the Potomac river. On the launchpads rest three massive helicarriers, whose rotaries are beginning to spin, spraying water everywhere as they get up to speed. The bushes and leaves and trees whip across the lawn in the crossbreeze.

“Once those babies triangulate, there’s nothing you can do,” Rumlow gloats. “Zola’s algorithm is on board and they’re going to fuck you up.”

“Why is it always me?!” Steve hears Bruce muttering from behind him. “Why do _I_ always get the huge fucking flying things?”

When Steve shifts to look, Bruce is already turning around and starting to sprint towards the churning waters and the rising carriers. He’s halfway across the lawn when his jacket starts to tear as green flesh expands and grows, and in only a second, the Hulk is stomping through the fresh-cut grass and rose bushes and diving into the river.

“Ms. Potts, please take me within range of their systems, if you’d be so kind,” Jarvis says in all of their ears.

Pepper kicks up and takes flight, zooming after the Hulk and towards the carriers. “I’m betting they have a really inane wi-fi password, don’t you?”, she murmurs into the comms as she flies past.

“Right you are,” Jarvis agrees.

“Okay, but get back here quickly,” Steve says, as Pepper goes by, already feeling Tony’s absence. Then he feels slightly awkward giving her orders; it’s somehow different when it’s not a full member of the team. “Um, please,” he adds lamely, and he hears Pepper laughing at him as she disappears behind the first carrier.

Seconds later, Tony swoops back into the field in his shiny red and gold glory, pausing only to blast a shot towards a random HYDRA goon reaching for his gun by the bar.

“Is Peggy okay?” Steve asks, as soon as he sees him.

Tony snorts. “She’s fine. Told me to get my ass back here. You think she’d let me sit out a battle when you’re in danger?”

“Sounds like Peggy,” Bucky agrees from Steve’s left.

“Where’s Bruce?” Tony asks, scanning the field and shooting another repulsor jet at someone foolish enough to try to take him out on foot. Bucky just points towards the river, where a giant green shape is swimming towards the rising helicarriers.

“Alright!” Tony says, sounding strangely excited. “Pep! I feel like those helicarriers are calling our names!”

“Already way ahead of you, dear,” Pepper’s voice comes over the comms, and Steve can see her looping in the air around the second carrier.

“Not that much!” Tony shouts and heads towards the carriers after her. “Last one to down a carrier buys dinner.”

Pepper laughs and Steve hears the Hulk roar as he launches himself out of the river and onto the side of the first carrier, scaling up the metal hull with ease.

“We are almost through into their network, sir,” Jarvis informs through the comms.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” Tony grumbles as he also disappears behind the first carrier, clearly aiming towards the final one rising out furthest away from the garden. With the helicarriers taken care of, Steve feels confident in turning back to the mass of HYDRA agents.

Guns have appeared in hands and tactical positions have been taken around the garden. He sees a few upturned tables and chairs thrown to the side. He looks at the agents, at their numbers, and then looks to his side. To Bucky, and to Clint and Natasha.

“Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?” Steve asks, with an eerie calm.

Rumlow snorts and looks mockingly around.

“Four of you, fifty of us?” he sneers. “Well, may the best men win.”

“Seems like it’ll be a bit of an unfair fight, don’t you think?” Bucky says, grinning. “C’mon Rogers, let’s take these bastards out.”

Then everything descends into chaos. Bullets start flying at them, and Steve slides his shield off his back, ready to protect himself. He sees Clint vault over one of the last standing tables, scouting for somewhere high to shoot from, sees Natasha tug her dress over her head to reveal her Widow’s catsuit beneath it. Beside him, Bucky pulls a gun from his jacket and takes aim at the nearest soldier.

Steve knows he has to get to Rumlow, but he’s staying out of the thick of the fight, letting the others protect him. _Cowardly bastard_. He starts trying to get over there, but there are several people in his way first. He fends off their blows, getting hits in with the shield where he can, Bucky fighting mercilessly at his side.

“The helicarriers are reaching altitude,” Jarvis suddenly says in his ear. “The weapon systems are triangulating to each other. Ms. Potts is taking care of their targeting chips as we speak.”

“That’s my girl,” Tony says. “Shit, whatever’s in that algorithm must be crazy. I wonder if they’d give us the source code?”

“Not the time, Tony,” Steve advises. Then suddenly, just as Clint shouts, “Cap! Incoming!”, there’s a roar of sound and an explosion, and he looks up to see Rumlow again, standing on the bar and grinning maniacally, a rocket launcher over his shoulder.

“Well, fuck,” Bucky says beside him.

“Overkill, much?” Tony says from the air. “Give me a second, I’ll come take that out.” He jets back towards the lawn, but before he can get far, he has to turn to block some further blasts from the helicarriers, which have started to return fire.

“So, if Stark and Pepper have matching outfits, and Steve and Bucky have that whole star thing going on, do we need to get something too, Nat?” Clint asks in the middle of the fray while spearing three agents with one arrow. They were just lining up so nicely.

Natasha doesn’t answer immediately as she’s too busy punching Rollins in the mouth.

“I don’t know,” she says, after she’s applied her Widow’s Bites to his neck and knocked him out cold. “What would we get? Matching tattoos or something?”

Clint pauses to nock another arrow. “Or, like, jewelry or something. You know, like rings, maybe,” he says casually, or he clearly wants to appear casual. “I just feel like we’re letting the side down.”

“Clinton Frances Barton! Are you proposing to me in the middle of a firefight?” Natasha asks.

“You guys know we can all hear you, right?” Tony says. “Also, you’re apparently a thing, congrats. Anyone else got anything they want to get off their chests? Nobody’s pregnant, or considering changing their name, or….”

“Or Loki in disguise?” Bucky says.

“C’mon, that joke is _really_ old now, Buckaroo.”

“No, I mean, I think that dame over there is Loki in disguise.”

Nobody can really afford the time to stop and look properly, but they all do it anyway, and sure enough, the mystery woman is now wielding a staff and wearing Loki’s familiar horned helmet, though she’s still incongruously dressed the evening gown, with the remaining five or six members of HYDRA looking on in mingled fascination and horror.

“What the _fuck_,” Clint says.

“Loki, get out of here,” Steve yells while he blocks another volley of bullets with his shield.

“If you fuck this up for us…,” Tony starts, doing a flyby over the garden, but Loki sighs dramatically.

“I am not here to _fuck this up_, as you so crassly put it, for you. I am here to help you,” he snipes while easily spearing an agent with his staff.

“Wait, can he hear us?!” Tony shouts. “How can he hear us?!”

“I took one of the spare earpieces from the lab, you blind moron,” Loki sighs, while skewering another agent and throwing him over the bar counter.

“Why would you help us?” Natasha asks, sounding suspicious. She’s starting to amass quite the body count around her position near a drinks trolley.

“Because I felt sorry for you,” Loki sneers. “So outnumbered. So helpless.”

“I think we were doing pretty okay,” Tony says, annoyed, blasting another hole into one of the carriers, and Loki shushes him.

“It’s not because he feels sorry for us,” Bucky pipes up from where he’s flushing out a group of agents from behind an upturned table with extreme prejudice. “It’s because he’s lonely. He wants to be part of a team.”

Loki waves a lazy hand towards Rumlow’s rocket launcher, which turns into smoke in his hands, and then flicks his hand again to blast Rumlow off the bar and into some rosebushes several feet away. Getting up, Rumlow looks on in horrified rage at the rapidly diminishing ranks of HYDRA all around him. Everything seems to have stilled at the sudden appearance of Loki, and the HYDRA agents are looking around uncertainly at the new player who has entered their midst.

“You can think that if you want,” Loki says.

“That wasn’t a no,” Natasha points out, and Loki snipes back, “It wasn’t a yes either!”

“Loki?! Is that you?!” Thor suddenly booms through their earpieces, and as one, everyone winces. He’s even louder than the Hulk.

“Yes, brother, it is I,” Loki says, rolling his eyes and leaning against the gently smoking bar counter.

“Brother?! You called me brother!” Thor yells jubilantly, and everyone winces again.

“A slip of the tongue,” Loki sneers. “I meant ‘son of Odin,’ of course. You are no brother of mine.”

“Oh,” Thor says, still managing to be very loud, even though he sounds crestfallen.

“You know that you don’t have to shout, Thor, yeah?” Tony says, cringing and taking advantage of Thor’s silence. “That’s kind of why I designed these? What’s your status?”

“I have rescued Fury and informed him about HYDRA,” Thor reports. “He wishes to be taken to the Triskelion straight away so that he can ‘start rooting out the bastards.’”

Steve feels a little like he’s half-deaf again. “Okay, Thor. Do that and then get back here as soon as you can.”

The agents are slowly starting to get their bearings and are beginning to surround Loki in a loose formation. Loki smiles at them, predatory.

“Rogers!” Thor booms, and they can almost hear him beaming at his own joke.

“And maybe do it quietly?” Clint adds, and they hear Fury in the background saying, “A-mother-fucking-men.”

“Trust that idiot to not even manage to use a simple communications device,” Loki says, as a merciful silence fills the comms. Then he glances around all of them with a smile and flips a pair of deadly looking knives into his hands from somewhere in the folds of his dress. “Let me show you amateurs how it’s really done.”

He moves through the agents like he’s not really there, flickering in and out of existence in the blink of an eye. Cutting throats and stomachs and faces, leaving a path of bodies in his wake.

“This doesn’t mean we’re cool, Loki,” Clint says, though he sounds grudgingly impressed.

Loki finally reappears at the back of the bar, leaning gracefully over the counter to pluck a full glass of champagne and drowning it.

Steve’s pretty sure he could hear a pin drop in the silence that’s fallen, and then it’s just Steve and Rumlow, facing each other across the rosebushes.

Rumlow, who in the chaos of it all has managed to tear off his civilian clothing only to reveal that hideous mockery HYDRA had made of the Captain America suit Steve wears, the malevolent red skull almost glowing on his chest. It doesn’t look like it fits him very well; it’s a little loose across the shoulders, and the legs are a tad too long.

“He’s mine,” Steve says quietly, warning the others to hang back, and they do.

“Got your back, Cap,” Clint says. “But I know how it is. Go get ‘em.”

“Shame you weren’t on our side after all, Cap,” Rumlow says, stepping forward. He looks untouched by the battle, content until now to let everyone else do the work. “But that’s okay. I’m here to lead the world into the order it needs.”

“I’d rather die than join HYDRA,” Steve snarls.

“That can be arranged,” Rumlow sneers, and Steve hears Clint say, “Oh, he did _not_ just say that. _So _lame.”

“Shut it, Barton! You’ll be next once I’ve finished with this son of a bitch,” Rumlow roars, and he rushes forward, aiming a brutal punch right at Steve’s face.

Steve gets the shield up just in time, and the blow reverberates off it. Along with that God-awful outfit, Rumlow’s wearing some kind of reinforced gauntlets on his arms, and Steve does _not _want to know how it would feel to be on the receiving end of them. He wheels around to face Rumlow and throws a punch back at him, connecting with his nose with a satisfying crunch. Rumlow reels backward, momentarily dazed, but he rallies and comes back at Steve. Steve takes a few steps back to get far enough away and then flings the shield, taking out Rumlow’s legs and knocking him to the ground again.

“What are you without that shield?” Rumlow taunts him, slowly getting up once again. “Come here and face me like a man, not like a fucking coward queer with your friends to back you up.”

“On va voir,” Steve growls.

“Steve, no!” Bucky yells, but it’s too late; it’s like he’s fifteen and tiny again. He could never resist a challenge then, and he sure as hell can’t now.

“Here,” he calls to Bucky as he throws the shield to him, knowing that Bucky can make the catch; they’ve practiced it enough. Rumlow rushes at Steve as if on cue and they trade blows, Steve blocking them as they come, but Rumlow gets in a hit, pushing him back into a rosebush. His foot catches and he stumbles, and Rumlow headbutts him, then lands an uppercut to his jaw, knocking Steve several feet through the air before he lands in a heap on the ground. His head rings.

“Steve!” he hears Bucky shouting, but it sounds distant, like being underwater. He’s got to get up. He has to get up _now_, because Rumlow’s coming towards him. He just has to wait for his head to stop spinning.

“And after we deal with Barton and his red-headed bitch, we’ll take him back,” Rumlow spits, blood pouring from his nose. “Your pal, your buddy, your _Bucky_. Fucking fairy. We’ll put his brain back in the blender and he’ll be working for HYDRA again.”

“There’s none of you left,” Steve spits out, “Look around you. It’s just you.”

“Like I said, cut off one head,” Rumlow starts, and Steve hates him, _hates _him for saying those words, for HYDRA still existing after all this time. That’s what makes him do it, the rage, the thought of HYDRA getting Bucky again; he gets to his feet and runs at Rumlow, and he’s punching him everywhere he can reach, raining blows down on his face and chest and stomach.

“Steve!” Bucky calls again, and he knows, he _knows_ to hold his arm out, to make the catch without looking, and when his hand finds his shield, he buries it in Rumlow’s chest with a final, sickening crunch.

The edge of the shield drips red with Rumlow’s blood when he pulls it out.

He looks up to see Clint, Natasha, and Bucky standing shoulder to shoulder. His team. His friends. His _family._ He turns his back on Rumlow and concentrates on them.

“It’s over,” he says into his comms. “HYDRA’s finished.”

“Roger that. On our way back,” Tony says, and a moment later, he swoops down and takes in the scene.

“Well, guess nobody’s going to be spending any time in here any time soon,” he says, gesturing to the ruined garden and the pile of bodies. “Not that I’m going to miss the place.”

“Hulk like big flying machine,” Hulk says morosely, pointing at the sinking remains. “Hulk want one.”

“That’s okay, I’m sure there’ll be others,” Pepper says consolingly, flipping her helmet open.

Finally, Thor flies in. Out of the ruined garden party, the smashed chairs, the scorch marks from the rocket launcher, the wreckage of the helicarriers, and the overflowing river, it’s Loki who truly catches his attention. He seems unfazed by his ruined gown and his female form, and instead grabs his brother in a hug that seems to knock the breath out of him.

“Brother!” he shouts jubilantly. “I knew there was good in you! I knew it!”

Loki wheezes, unable to draw enough breath to respond, while desperately trying to wriggle out of Thor’s embrace.

“Would you join our team?” Thor continues. “To make amends for your past misdeeds? Fight on the side of good once more?”

“‘Misdeeds’?” Clint mutters, while Tony says, “That sounds like something that should be a group decision, Thor.”

Loki manages to break free of Thor at last, an expression of the utmost disgust on his face.

“_Join your team?_” he hisses, as though Thor has asked him to do something irremediably immoral. “Why on _Earth_ would you think that I would do something horrible like that?”

Thor blinks at him.

“Because you have proven yourself to us! And because you would be welcome among us. Would he not?” Thor says, turning to the other Avengers, none of whom can muster anything like the enthusiasm Thor seems to be expecting.

“Look, just because he helped out a little –” Clint starts, and Loki cuts him off.

“You need not worry yourself, Agent Barton. Joining this team is the _last_ thing I will be doing.” Loki grins at them. “I have _far_ more important things to do with my time.”

“As long as they don’t include getting in our way,” Steve says warningly.

“Fear not, Captain. My tasks are of a more _universal_ level than any of your pathetic minds could possibly understand. And I must see to them now.”

He gives them all a mocking bow, and then he disappears in a twirl of green velvet.

“We’re gonna have to keep an eye out for strange vases, aren’t we?” Bucky murmurs, and Steve nods, while Thor gives a loud sniff, which they all politely ignore.

“It’s okay,” Bruce says soothingly from the ground where the Hulk was standing mere moments ago. “Sounds like he’s got other things to keep him busy for now. Though I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him.”

“Probably not,” Tony agrees. “Okay, I think we’re done here, now that Groucho Marx has decided we’re not worth his time. Schwarma, anyone? I’ll call a car service.”


	12. Epilogue

The living room of the penthouse is dark, with the only illumination coming from the millions and millions of lights of Manhattan just outside the wall-to-ceiling windows. The large TV screen has been turned off for a while, immersing the room in deep, long shadows.

Steve is pressed into the couch, his back arched and his head thrown back. Mouth open and harsh breaths escaping into the air as Bucky fucks into him steady and slow, his head bent over Steve’s chest, lips and teeth caught around a nipple, tugging and pulling as he moves. Making Steve arch up and cry out on each heavy thrust and pull. It feels decadent, doing this here, exposed to all of the world through those ceiling-high windows, bathed only in the lights of the city.

Everyone else is out on the town, Thor finally able to wine and dine Jane to his heart's content, and the Tower is quiet and still. It’s strange; now that they don’t need to hide anymore, Steve’s been keen to just have these nice, quiet evenings at home with Bucky. Just the two of them together. They’d put on a movie and grabbed some snacks, intending to finish the second part of the trilogy, but halfway through the film, Bucky’s hand had slid up his thigh and sneaked between his legs and soon everything about the film had been forgotten. Jarvis had been kind enough to turn the screen off once neither of them was paying attention anymore.

Bucky gives a long lingering thrust and stuffs his hands properly under Steve, grabbing fistfuls of his ass. Grinding deep and slow, each slow movement bringing Steve closer and closer to the edge of coming.

“Buck,” he moans. “I’m so close, baby.”

Bucky growls and smiles around the nipple still caught between his lips. “I know, sweetheart.”

Suddenly, there’s a whoosh from the edge of the room and the sound of someone almost stumbling over their own feet. They both look up towards the entryway where the sound came from. Bucky is the first to react to the sight of another Steve standing there wearing strange-looking white and red armor.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Loki!” Bucky yells from the couch. “Cut it out!”

He punches out his left hand with the middle finger raised towards the entryway, still balls-deep in Steve’s ass. Steve lets himself flop back onto the couch, raising his own middle finger towards the interloper. He’s glad that Loki’s on their side now, kind of, but the Peeping Tom act is getting pretty old pretty fast.

It takes both of them a moment to read the absolute bewilderment and shock on the other Steve’s face, and how it’s way too genuine an emotion for it to be Loki standing there. That bright pink blush rising up on his cheeks, the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Maybe seeing them staring, he quickly schools his expression back into a stony blankness.

Both Bucky and Steve seem to come to the realization that this is in fact very much _not_ Loki at the same time. With surprising grace, they slide apart, and Steve throws himself over the couch to grab the shield from the where it had been left earlier in the day, while Bucky pulls out a gun from one of his, or Natasha’s, hiding places, cocking it and pointing it squarely at the intruder.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks with that low, growly voice of the Winter Soldier.

“Ahh, um –” is the only thing the other Steve seems to be able to get out. His eyes flick up and down Bucky’s body every few seconds. He’s buck-ass naked and hard, his cock still shiny from all the lube. Steve can’t really blame the guy for staring.

While he appreciates Bucky’s lack of modesty, Steve does feel the need to place the shield strategically in front of his crotch before stepping up from behind the couch to stand next to Bucky.

“I asked you a question,” Bucky glowers, and Steve can hear the servos on his arm beginning to vibrate as the plates rearrange themselves for combat.

The other him raises his left arm, palm out. The right arm is holding a long silver case. A familiar-looking silver case, and suddenly it all clicks for Steve. The aftermath of the battle of New York. The scepter. The fight on the glass walkway.

“It was you!” Steve exclaims accusatively, and the other Steve nods as if he knows exactly what Steve is talking about. “You took the scepter!” he continues, his voice rising.

The other Steve nods again, and then says cautiously, “We needed it –, we needed it to save the world.”

“Well, it’s definitely you,” Bucky mutters from his left. “Just, you know, a more stuck-up ‘you.’”

The other Steve probably hears it too, but seems to choose to ignore it.

“I’m here to return it,” he says, and then for a moment, he looks sheepish. “I think I overshot the mark. I should have gotten back to the original time point and reset the timeline.”

Everything that’s happened in the past month and a half flashes through Steve’s head, and the implications of what the other him has just said spread out before him like two roads parting at a fork.

“Reset the timeline? Back to where it was, so none of this would have happened?” he clarifies, and the other Steve nods, but more slowly now.

“Yeah, no,” Steve shakes his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It has to go back,” the other him argues, his fist clenching protectively around the case he’s carrying.

“No, it does not, and it will not,” Steve says. “If you think even for a second that I would let Bucky go back….” He trails off, looking at the other him more closely, at the barren and stiff look on his face, the strange cut of his hair.

“What’s happened to you –,” he corrects himself, “To me?”

The other him opens his mouth to reply, but Steve doesn’t let him. “I would _never_! It was because of you that I knew! I thought now that you’d wanted me to know! Did you just say it to win the fight?”

The other him looks away, maybe ashamed, maybe frustrated. Steve is finding it increasingly hard to read himself.

“We needed it to save the world,” he says again, quietly.

Steve ignores him. He’s just too angry. “And now you’re coming back. Trying to reset the timeline and send Bucky back to torture and pain? How could you do that? What have I become to do something like that?!”

He hates how his voice shakes, and for a moment, the other Steve looks distressed, shaking his head. It’s only the second time his expression has changed from that harsh blankness.

“I didn’t –, I wouldn’t –”

He seems strangely lost for words, refusing to look at either one of them, and Steve suspects it’s not because of the nudity anymore.

“Let’s be crystal clear. You’re not leaving here with that scepter,” Steve says firmly. “We’ll make sure it gets back to Asgard for safekeeping. But you’re not taking it with you.”

“I can’t –” the other Steve starts, but Bucky steps forward with the gun still raised.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” he says, with an eerie calm. “But you aren’t my Steve. I can see that clear as day.”

The other Steve flinches, but stays silent. He’s looking at Bucky strangely, almost with a ravenous sort of hope, and Bucky’s voice softens just a fraction. “I wasn’t myself not that long ago either, so I can’t hold it against you, but I’m not going back there. _Ever_. Not for anything. Not for you, not for him.”

Bucky cocks his head towards Steve next to him as he speaks, who instantly splutters, “I wouldn’t – Bucky! How could you say that?! I would never, _ever_ send you back there!”

“I know that,” Bucky says more gently, turning to look at Steve while still keeping his gun pointed steadily towards the other him. “But he clearly doesn’t seem to.”

The other him is just shaking his head, shoulders slumped. “If the timeline isn’t fixed, I don’t know what’ll happen. How it’ll all end.”

Steve doesn’t care very much. The more he speaks, the less Steve is willing to trust this other version of himself. It all seems so alien, like looking into a funhouse mirror and not recognizing yourself even if you know it’s yourself looking back.

He holds out his hand, not letting the shield go. “It’s a risk we’re willing to take. Hand it over.”

“Alright,” the other him eventually says, resigned, after a brief silence.

He lays the long metal case on the coffee table and snaps open the closures. Nestled inside the case is the scepter. It hums and glows its eerie blue light. Carefully, the other Steve lifts it out of the case and places it on the coffee table

“So you heading back to –” Steve hedges, “Wherever you’re coming from?”

The other him looks down at the empty case and shakes his head.

“I have a few more stops to make.”

“Well, good luck, I guess,” Steve tries for jovial, but somehow it’s a struggle.

He doesn’t seem to be able to make any kind of connection with his other self. It feels like there’s a yawning distance between them, and Steve wonders what could have happened to turn him into this.

“Say ‘hi’ to the other me,” Bucky quips from beside him, and for some reason, that makes the other Steve flinch again.

“Sure,” he says, but it sounds fake and forced. He gives them both a tight nod and steps back into the hallway, pulling out a vial from his utility belt. He slots the vial into an opening in the forearm of his suit and presses another button by his wrist that causes a helmet to slide over his head and face that’s not dissimilar to Tony’s Iron Man suit.

For a second, the other him looks at them wistfully through the slot of his visor. He disappears with a strange popping noise as soon as he presses down on the area that the vial disappeared into.

“Well, that was fucked up,” Bucky says, and Steve can only nod, agreeing both with the sentiment of another him from another universe, place, timeline, _whatever_, and the concept of his personality changing so drastically.

Steve turns back to the coffee table where the scepter is resting. “Let’s get this into the containment unit in the lab. I don’t want it hanging around.”

Bucky nods and picks up both of their pants off the floor, throwing Steve’s at him while he pulls his own on. They both dress quickly and Steve places the scepter back into the case, closing it with a click.

“I’ll give the others a call as soon as we’ve got this contained,” Steve says as he picks up the case.

Bucky moves past him, checking the hallway and making sure there’s no one there. “All clear,” he says, with a suspicious tilt to his mouth still. As if by mutual agreement, they both disregard the elevator and head down the hall to the staircase.

The room falls silent and still as the door closes behind them, Steve and Bucky’s footsteps and the light of the scepter fading into the distance of the hall. For a moment, everything is quiet.

By the dining table, one of the chairs standing just off-arrangement begins to shift and change until a dark-haired man is standing in its place. He looks around the dark, quiet room, at the lights of the city beyond the window, and he smiles softly.

“Well, that took a lot longer than planned, but happy endings all around,” Loki sighs, glimmering into the air and disappearing.


End file.
